


The Engineer

by lomku



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, BAMF Tony Stark, BUT NO ACTUAL RAPE HAPPENS, Because come on, Brainwashed Tony Stark, Brainwashing, But the events of these movies will be adressed, Don't copy to another site, Eventual Happy Ending, Fake Character Death, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Tony Stark, I'll add more tags as the story continues, Kidnapped Tony Stark, Kidnapping, Loss of Limbs, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Homecoming Compliant, Past Relationship(s), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Sad, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Tony Whump, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, at least not for now, heed the tags people this story is dark, so much whump guyssss, this will take place over several years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:44:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lomku/pseuds/lomku
Summary: After Civil War, Tony Stark is trying to piece his life back together and to avoid falling into depression. But one day, he gets himself kidnapped. The kidnappers want something he cannot give them, and when he tries to escape, everything goes wrong.This is a story of Tony suffering, losing himself, adapting and surviving.





	1. PART I

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I know it's a bit late to write a civil war fic, but I have so many ideas.  
> Honestly, there will be a lot of angst before things go better.  
> Enjoy!

 

**\--------- PART I ---------**

 

 

“Honey-bear, Rhodey, Rhodes, James, platypus, peanut-butter to my jam, are you sure you-“

 

“For the love of god, Tony, I’m fine! I just lost my balance. And don’t try to take the blame, these braces work perfectly well. You can’t make me new braces every time I fall, it just doesn’t work that way. You know I need to adjust to walking like that... besides, you have more important stuff to do than worrying about poor lil’ old me.“

Rhodey turned to Tony and sighed.

“I know you feel guilty, Tones. And I know you don’t believe me when I say it’s not your fault. But you constantly mother-henning me won’t make my legs magically heal.”

“Hey, I’m not mother-henning anyo-“

“Yes you are. Come on, let’s get out of here and grab a coffee or something. I’ve had enough rehab for today.”

Wordlessly, Tony offered his hand to Rhodey, who took it and hoisted himself up from the training mat. They walked in silence out of the training facilities and towards the garage. 

 

Three months after Siberia, the compound felt as lonely as ever. Tony couldn’t shake the feeling that he was in some kind of haunted house, all with the empty open spaces and the ghosts of missed opportunities. He knew that thinking about what could have been was pointless, but he still caught himself coming up with countless scenarios where things would have gone differently. Not that that made him feel any better, mind you. It was the perfect way of rounding off depressing days. Who didn’t love mulling things over for hours in bed? Ugh. Maybe he should start taking sleeping pills again. _Yeah, and be vulnerable to anyone breaking in during the night? I don’t think so_. Oh right, and his paranoia was playing up again. Wonderful. _You know very well why. Or have you forgotten what happened with the avengers? With Ste-, no, Rogers?_

Tony groaned inwardly. Now was not the time _. Come on, Tony, be positive, think about the wonderful coffee you’ll have with your bestie, the man who never abandoned you, who’s always at your back -_ _and how did you repay him? By breaking his back_. Oh come ON. He couldn’t catch a  break, could he? _Ha. Break. Get it? Cause Rhodey’s back is- Fuck. Stop it._ _Don’t go making shitty puns, it just makes you feel worse. Just... be positive, yeah, that sounds good. Ok. What was I thinking about again?_  

 

“Ground control to major Tom, ground control to major Tom, anyone there?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Tony turned around to face Rhodey. They had walked all the way to the garage without him noticing, and they were standing beside one of Tony’s Tesla’s.

“You back on Earth? Cause I love standing around as much as the next guy, but I think you’re supposed to step in the car, not stand outside of it” Rhodey smirked.

Tony shot him a sheepish grin: ”Uh, yeah, sorry, just lost in thoughts. Umm... where are we going again?”

 

**—You were going for a coffee, boss.—**

 

“Thanks, FRI. All right. Uh. Let’s go to Café Au Lait then, it’s not too far from here”

 

**—I’ll send you the address right away.—**

 

“Great.” Tony made for the driver’s seat, but decided against it. He wasn’t very focused, and the last thing they needed was an accident. He looked at Rhodey, wondering how he was going to explain he didn’t feel like driving.

 

“Let me guess, you don’t want to drive?” Rhodey rightly ventured. ”All right, give me the keys. Been a while since I last drove this beauty.”

 

And a beauty it was: the sleek car shone in a dark red metallic tone, with golden details to complete the iron man palette of colours. It was a bit ostentatious, but then again, when had Tony ever been accused of being subtle? The Tesla model X was one of his most recent cars. It fitted his clean-energy persona perfectly, while also being comfortable and spacious (in fact, Tony had bought the car with Rhodey and his braces in mind). 

 

They drove in comfortable silence, enjoying a rare moment of (relative) quiet for a change. After about 30 minutes, Rhodey parked the car in front of the café. He made to get out of the car, but Tony stopped him with a hand on his arm:

“Let me, honey-bear. I’ll be right back.”

Rhodey sat back, trying not to show his relief too obviously. Tony knew that his friend was still insecure about his braces and didn’t want to make a scene by falling on the way to the coffee shop. The press always seemed to materialize out of nowhere to document their every misstep, literal as well as figurative ones. Tony knew that all too well. The fallout from the “Civil War”, as it had been dubbed by the press, was considerable. For weeks after getting back from Siberia, he hadn’t been able to leave the hospital, and later, the compound, without a horde of journalists on his heels. They were like vultures, trying to get the juiciest details, the most heart-breaking confessions, the specifics of the fights with “team Cap”, the injuries, the reasons for said injuries, and so on. He hadn’t trusted himself to keep his carefree billionaire façade during the first week, so he had repeated “No comment” like a mantra day in and day out. He had still been upset and weakened by his encounter with the two super-soldiers, and some of the questions were too personal, struck too close to home. Of course, it didn’t help that Vision, Tony and Rhodey were the only ones left to deal with the fallout. The Exvengers, as Tony liked to call them, had all disappeared without a trace, and king T’Challa had fucked off to Wakanda without a word. Tony and his PR team were stuck trying to appease the media frenzy, defending themselves against all accusations towards the Avengers, and explaining what had happened. The world did not know everything. It was public knowledge that the Avengers had split up because of the Sokovia Accords, but the fight in Siberia had been glossed. Nobody outside Tony’s close friend circle knew what exactly had happened. The official story was that Iron Man had met with Captain America and the Winter Soldier to neutralize the five other super-soldiers, before a disagreement took place, and the two fugitives left. T’Challa, who had been there as well, and hadn’t that been a bitter blow to Tony when he found out – _he could have helped me, he just_ left _, not even knowing if I was dead or not, we were supposed to be on the same team_ – had brought Zemo to American soil to be judged and to clear Barne’s name.

Tony had had to wait for hours until one of his helicopters came to pick him up. Hours of waiting in a dead suit, not being able to stand up, worrying that the damage to his chest was fatal. Hours of listening to his ragged breaths, of staring at the snowflakes silently covering the shield. Those had been some of the longest, and loneliest, hours of his life. He had had the time to regret just about everything he had done during the Civil War. He had had the time to wish he had engaged lethal weaponry and just obliterated Barnes and Rogers, seeing they clearly had had no qualms in trying to kill him. He had thought many ugly things during those hours, imagining in vivid detail how exactly he would have killed the super-soldiers, how he would have made Rogers pay for being a lying hypocrite, how he would have avenged his parent’s murder.

He had mourned his mother. And then his father, too.

At one point, he had wished Rogers had put the shield in his throat instead of his chest.

That had not been his most glorious moment.

But he was so _tired_. Tired of being blamed for everything, tired of being lied to, tired of being used, tired of being betrayed again and again. His life seemed to revolve around this word, _betrayal_. How fucking pathetic of him. He trusted too easily, too eager to please the people around him, and look where that had left him.

Alone, in a freezing bunker in the middle of Siberia, after getting the hell beat out of him by his _teammate_.

So yeah, he wasn’t really happy right now. In fact, you could safely say he was depressed, sleep-deprived, stressed, and generally not glad to be alive.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Ross was now actively antagonizing Tony. To be fair, it wasn’t without reason. After all, Tony had allowed Rogers to break out his team from the Raft. But then again, the Raft had been a blatant disregard of basic human rights. Tony fully intended to make sure no-one else would be imprisoned on the floating prison. But having Ross as an enemy wasn’t good. The man was trying to undermine Tony’s position in the Accord Committee, and if the committee decided Tony was indeed the unreliable and unstable man that Ross made him out to be, he would be shut off from future negotiations. And that wouldn’t do. Tony had not spent three years slaving with his legal team to make the Accords into documents protecting the superhero community as well as the rest of the world, to just be thrown out because of the susceptible Ross. Tony had heard worrying rumours about Ross wanting to force superheroes to make their identity public, and that could absolutely not happen. Just thinking about the spiderling having to expose himself in such a way made his heart clench. Peter Parker had to be protected from men like Ross.

Tony sighed deeply. There was so much he needed to do, and so little time and energy.

He got out of the car, purple sunglasses shielding him from the world. The coffee shop was nearly empty and luckily, nobody paid attention to him. He ordered a black espresso for himself and a mocha latte for Rhodey.

Two minutes later, Tony walked back to the car, feeling a bit more alert thanks to the delicious smell of coffee. He opened the passenger door, plopped down, and beamed at Rhodey.

“So, where do you want to go now? What about drinking the coffee by the lake, nice and quiet? The weather is not so bad, after all.”

Rhodey just looked at him, jaw tense, hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

“What, did I order the wrong coffee? I thought you liked-“

Tony clamped his mouth shut when he noticed the gun trained to Rhodey’s head. He turned his head to look at the back seats, and saw three masked men, silently sitting, each with a raised gun. The one behind the driver’s seat was pointing his weapon at the base of Rhodey’s skull, the two others had their guns aimed at Tony’s face and chest.

 They wore black combat gear, the only way to differentiate them being their shoes. The one menacing Rhodey had black shoes, the two others had brown and blue shoes.

_I guess I’ll have to call them by their colours…. Okay, so these gentlemen are Darth Black, Brownie, and Blues. Don’t judge, I haven’t had my coffee yet._

Darth Black turned his head to face Tony, and the genius was eerily certain the man was smiling behind the mask.

“Hello Stark, isn’t this a merry ride?”


	2. Chapter 2

_Grrrreeat. Just what I needed. It’s too early for this shit._

Tony put on a confused expression.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve quite caught that. You were saying?”

Tony was not above pettily talking back. It was all he had, after all. And what he was best at. How had that living furnace put it again? “Cheap trick and cheesy one-liner”? Yeah, was about right.

Darth Black wasn’t amused. He made an impatient gesture with his gun and growled.

“Don’t play dumb. I know you’ve been in this kind of situation often enough to recognise when you’re outmatched. You don’t have a suit of armour, and we made sure nobody saw us getting in the car.”

_These guys clearly know what they’re doing. Or at least, they want me to believe that they do. Sadly, I think they actually are prepared._

Tony, not about to let himself be intimidated, even if it would be with reason, growled right back.

“What do you want?”

If they wanted him to stop pretending, they had to get to the point, and fast.

Blues and Brownie looked at each other but didn’t speak up. Clearly, Darth Black was the one in charge. And true to that observation, Darth Black spoke again:

“Wouldn’t you want to know? Right now, we want your cripple friend to start the car, nice and slow, and drive out of the city.”

Brownie obediently pressed the muzzle of his gun harder against Rhodey’s head. The colonel was clenching his jaw, but complied nonetheless. He was uncharacteristically silent. Maybe they had told him to be quiet? It wouldn’t have surprised Tony, because otherwise Rhodey would have warned him before he got in the car. Well, there was no point in pondering about what could have happened.

Tony wondered briefly if he could somehow make FRIDAY contact authorities but dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. He hadn’t taken the time to install her in the car and that meant the only way of contacting her was to take his phone out. And that was currently impossible to do, given he was closely watched by three armed men.

The ride out of the city was as quiet as the ride to the café, but incredibly more tense. Tony was acutely aware that Rhodey was probably not important to the masked men, given that they hadn’t even addressed him by his name. That meant, unfortunately, that they wouldn’t have any qualms about injuring or even killing him if it meant Tony would cooperate. Tony preferred to avoid any threats against his friend, so he kept quiet, as much as it pained him not to snark.

Darth Black regularly gave directions to Rhodey, making them take the opposite direction of where the compound was.

_How long until FRIDAY decides we should have been back already? Does she even have those kinds of protocols? Shit, it was much easier with JARVIS._

Where were they even going? And why were they letting Rhodey drive? It didn’t make any sense. Normally, (and how sad was it that Tony was familiar enough with kidnappings that he could say that?) kidnappers would knock him out to prevent him from knowing where their base was. It didn’t seem right. These men had taken the trouble of hijacking their car, but surely they knew that the Tesla was entirely electrical, which meant once FRIDAY would realise something was wrong, she would just hack into the car and know exactly where they were. It couldn’t be _that_ easy, could it?

It was, in fact, not that easy.

After a little more than twenty minutes, Darth Black instructed Rhodey to pull over. They were in a deserted part of the road, in the middle of a forest. When the car stopped, Tony realised there was a black minivan parked behind the trees. The minivan would not be spotted by a moving car, which meant that no-one driving pas it had seen it. It was a clever hiding spot.

_This isn’t looking good._

Just as Tony was thinking that, Brownie and Blues got out of his car and yanked the front doors open. Blues grabbed Tony’s arm forcefully and dragged him out of the car. From the swearing he heard, Rhodey was getting the same treatment. Tony was dragged towards the minivan.

The thud of a body hitting the ground made Tony freeze in fear. Had they…?

No, Rhodey was still very much alive. He was struggling to sit up, and scowling quite spectacularly at Brownie.

“Are you fucking stupid? Can’t you see that you can’t drag me around with these braces?!”

_Note to self: upgrade Rhodey’s braces to make him able to run, or even better, fly away from situations like this._

Blues was clearly at a loss. Fortunately for him, Darth Black swooped in and commented snidely that since Rhodey was already on the ground, he could stay there.

“Lie down on your front and put your hand on your head. No funny moves, or you get a bullet to the spine.”

_Wow. Real low, reminding him of his injuries._

When Rhodey didn’t obey fast enough, Darth Black kicked him in the ribs. Tony took a step forward, about to berate him for what he’d done, but he was pulled back and held flush against Blue’s chest, one hand in his hair, tipping his head back painfully. Blue’s other hand was still holding the gun, which was now pressed firmly to the underside of Tony’s jaw.

Tony could feel his heartbeat thumping against the cold muzzle.

Rhodey was now in the desired position. He was breathing hard from the kicks in his ribs. Tony hoped they weren’t cracked.

He watched warily as Darth Black turned to Tony. The man was inching closer to Rhodey again, and Tony didn’t like that one bit. He decided that anything was better than Rhodey getting a beating, so he opened his mouth-

-but was unable to utter even a single word as his head was yanked back harshly. Blues continued to tip his head back until his back was arching to try to keep the strain from being too painful. Tony was even forced to shut his mouth again as the gun pressed hard against his jaw. He tried to make Blues lose his grip on his hair, to no avail.

_Ouch, okay, I got the message. No talking._

“Now that you won’t be able to interrupt, let me give you a lesson, Stark. Your sidekick here wasn’t fast enough to obey us, so he’s going to be punished. And you are going to watch him. If you even try to move, his punishment will be doubled. Have I made myself clear?”

Dread filled Tony’s gut. The man wasn’t joking around, and he was uttering serious threats before they even were at his base of operations. If Darth Black was already being so sadistic, Tony was in for a world of pain and humiliation. They had him exactly where they wanted him. If he showed resistance, Rhodey would pay the price. But if he didn’t, he was admitting defeat.

Tony didn’t hesitate.

He let his hands fall to his sides, going completely still.

_I’m sorry, Rhodey._

Tony watched from the corner of his eye as Darth Black advanced on Rhodey once more and snarled at him to stay still and accept his punishment. Then the actual beating began. Darth Black kicked Rhodey vicicously, in the legs, the arms, even the head. When Rhodey dropped his arms, dazed from the kick to the head, Darth Black retaliated by stomping on his spine.

Rhodey screamed.

Several kicks to the ribs and a few more at the head for good measure, and Darth Black finally stepped back. Rhodey was keeping his position, but he was bleeding and trembling from pain and the strain of keeping still.

Tony wasn’t faring much better. With each kick, his disgust and hatred for Darth Black had flared up. He was gritting his teeth and clenching his hands into fists, his nails digging into his palms to keep himself from moving.

Darth Black looked from Rhodey to Tony, seemingly satisfied with what he was seeing. He turned to Tony.

“So you can learn after all. Good. Now strip.”

_What?_

“Don’t make me repeat myself. You know the consequences.”

Tony hastily stripped to his boxers. He felt a pang of regret about his shirt, one of his favourites from Black Sabbath. When Darth Black continued to stare at him, he reluctantly shed his last piece of clothing. He was now naked and as vulnerable as he would ever be. He suddenly felt small and fragile under the glare of Darth Black.

Blues searched through his clothes until he found Tony’s phone. He placed the phone on a stone and cracked it with his booth. Brownie searched through Rhodey’s pockets until he found his phone and destroyed the phone as well.

As if they had been waiting for this, more masked men poured out of the minivan. A few of them began sabotaging the Tesla, destroying the car’s electronics and puncturing the tires.

_Poor car._

The Tesla wouldn’t take the road anymore, but more importantly, FRIDAY wouldn’t be able to access the car. Tony and Rhodey had no means of communications left, they were effectively cut off from any potential help.

They really had though of everything. Stripping Tony was actually smart, because he had countless gadgets in his pockets, and even useful tools in the seams of some of his clothes, for situations just like this. Too bad he wouldn’t be able to use them now.

Tony was very thankful when one of the goons gave him plain withe underwear and loose grey pants. At least he wouldn’t freeze his balls off. And be spared the humiliation of walking around naked. He wasn’t ashamed of his body, but it was difficult to be taken seriously when you didn’t wear any clothes. Besides, he didn’t want anybody ogling him.

When the car crew was done, two of them approached Tony and Rhodey. They were holding syringes filled with a clear liquid. Tony knew exactly where this was going. In a few seconds, he would be out, and then he would wake up somewhere, most likely tied to a chair. He could try to break the needle, making everything more difficult for his kidnappers, but he wasn’t alone. He couldn’t afford to try anything, not with Rhodey’s life on the line. So he didn’t resist when the goon grabbed his arm and injected him with the stuff.

From the looks of it, Rhodey had been injected as well.

_God, I hope they’ll leave Rhodey here. Please let them only take me._

The liquid was already affecting him. His vision was going grey against the edges, and he stumbled, only to be caught by unyielding hands. He felt himself being dragged to the minivan, too weak to walk on his own.

All men were retreating to the minivan, some pointing weapons at Rhodey to prevent him from following them. Rhodey was trying to get up, but his coordination was failing.

_As if you’d be able to walk after the beating you just got. Just let go, man. Won’t do you any good to try anything now. We’ve lost this battle._

Tony was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He was reasonably sure that they were in fact leaving Rhodey behind. Good. That was…good.

The last thing he heard before passing out was Rhodey’s slightly slurred voice:

“ _Tony!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting dark pretty fast, don't you think?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, another chapter...

James came to with a groan. Goddammit, what had he done to be so sore everywhere? He couldn’t have partied, he was way too old for that. Besides, there was the small issue with his legs…

Maybe he had overexerted himself during rehab?

No, because he had left with Tones to get some coffee and-

Shit!

_Shitshitshitshitshit_

He managed to put himself into a sitting position, cataloguing his injuries.

It hurt to breathe: bruised ribs, possibly cracked. Headache: blow to the head. No signs of concussions. Dull pain in his lower back: bruises on and around the spine. Nothing too dangerous. Aching arms and legs: bruises, due to kicks. Slight nausea and blurry but rapidly clearing vision: aftereffects of whatever drug they injected him.

James let out a breath. Nothing was permanently damaged, thank god, but he was hurting everywhere. That son of a bitch hadn’t pulled his kicks.

He was, unsurprisingly, alone. The Tesla was still there, but no signs of Tony or his kidnappers.

How long had he lain there?

It must have been a good ten hours, judging by the low light.

He had to get help.

James tried to stand up, but his braces wouldn’t unlock from their position. _They must have been damaged by the kicks. Thanks, asshole._ He had to drag himself to the phones. After a few seconds of trying in vain to turn them on, he turned to the car. _Maybe there is something salvageable in there._ Unfortunately, the car’s systems were completely fried.

James sighed. What now? He had no way of contacting anyone. He didn’t even know what time it was. For all he knew, he had been unconscious for more than a day.

Why hadn’t FRIDAY sent someone to pick him up? Yes, the car was destroyed, but up until it was fried, the location would have been available to FRIDAY. Unless… Unless the three men in the car had had a signal jammer with them.

_Fuck. If they had such a thing, they must have been really prepared. This is bad news._

There was no point in being all maudlin. First of all, he had to get to the road and hope somebody would drive past his spot.

It took a good ten minutes to drag himself to the road, but he managed to find a rock that was clearly visible for any car driver and hauled himself up on it.

Then, he waited.

During the time he sat on the rock, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the past day’s events. It had started just like any other day since his fall. Rehab, being watched over by a guilt-ridden Tony, making some progress with the braces… and falling. Nothing serious, but Tones had had that look on his face, where he started blaming himself for absolutely everything that went wrong, ever. Sometimes James didn’t know what to do to make his friend understand that he wasn’t the only one at fault in the whole Civil War mess. It didn’t help either that the press seemed to think that Tony Stark, as de-facto leader of the remaining avengers, needed to have all the answers.

The media circus had calmed down somewhat over the months, but James could see that Tony didn’t get enough sleep. The man was constantly tired and stressed. James suspected that he didn’t eat enough either; it seemed that Tony was getting thinner. He really hoped Tones wasn’t getting an eating disorder on top of his anxiety, PTSD and depression.

Fuck. It felt like the universe had something against his best friend.

And those kidnappers…

He had fallen for their trap hook, line and sinker. One moment a hooded guy had knocked on the window, asking for directions, and the other he was staring down the barrel of a gun. He shouldn’t have rolled down the window. After that, he hadn’t been able to do a thing. The men had let themselves in and patiently waited for an unsuspecting Tony to get in.

James felt so fucking stupid. He had been completely useless. Mute and paralysed. And then they had even used him to get Tones to obey. He understood why they did it, and it was the obvious thing to do, really. Tony was smart and didn’t give up easily. But you only had to meet him once to see how big a heart he had.

He was always reckless with his own life, but if someone else’s life was on the line, he’d happily sacrifice himself. And that was exactly what he had done.

When that asshole had started kicking him, James had been looking at Tony. Tony had been completely immobile, surrendering at only a word from the goon. All of that because James was on the ground.

He fucking hated that he had let himself be in that position. He was a trained military, for god’s sake! Tony was just a civilian!

He felt revolted by the compliance Tony had shown those goons. Stripping in a heartbeat, not saying anything, so unlike him. The Tony he knew would have make a lewd joke or two, but he had been silent. Hadn’t even tried to fight when they had injected him. And that look when he was being dragged away…

Tony’s eyes had found his moments before he was thrown in the van. His eyes had had a resigned and defeated look, with a hint of relief that James was being left behind. Of course, Tony had only thought of James.

He wished they had brought him along. He knew they would have used him to get Tones to submit faster, but he couldn’t help wishing he had been there to support his friend. He didn’t know if Tones had the strength left to not break. He was so frail after the Civil War.

James waited, and prayed that Tony would stay strong until they found him.

 

 

Three hours later, a tired-looking woman in a Skoda pulled over and rolled down her window.

James looked her in the eyes and said: “I’m Colonel James Rhodes. Please call the police. Tony Stark has been kidnapped.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony was dragged back to consciousness by a slap to the face.

_Well, that’s as an as efficient way as any to wake me up._

He rolled his head on his shoulders, looking around him. He was in the typical kidnapping room: bare concrete walls and floor, no windows, a single neon light illuminating the space. He was sitting on a metal chair, with his hands cuffed behind him and to the chair. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Could it be more cliché?

He was surrounded by the three same guys as in the car. Darth Black was in front of him, with the two others on his sides. Tony was sitting with his back to the door, hindering him from seeing anyone entering the room. An effective powerplay.

Tony let his gaze drift lazily from the goons on his sides, to the corners of the room, to Darth Black’s face. Or, more accurately, to the mask covering his face.

His head was pounding. That drug’s aftereffects were a bitch. And he hadn’t even gotten his coffee.

Okay, time to start the show.

“So… to what do I owe the pleasure?” he drawled.

No answer.

“Cat got your tongue? Or maybe it’s hard to speak through the mask? Trust me, I know all about how stuffy it can get behind a mask or helmet. You know, it would be easier if you just took it o-“

This time, the slap made his head jerk to the side.

Tony rolled his jaw, clenched and unclenched his hands a few times, and took a deep breath.

“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re talking?” he quipped.

Darth Black punched him in the jaw.

At this rate, Tony wouldn’t even get a chance to talk. Well, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He wasn’t going to wait and be silent like and obedient little puppy. He had a reputation to maintain, thank you very much.

Tony opened his mouth again.

“If you don’t let me talk, I won’t be able to help y-“

The kick to his stomach made the chair topple to the ground. He fell and connected to the ground with a bang. Heaving for air, he didn’t say anything while Blues and Brownie dragged his chair back up.

Tony had had enough of being treated like a punching bag. He glared at Darth Black, still too out of breath to say a word.

Darth Black glared right back at him and hissed:

“Shut up, Stark!”

Well, he had made him talk.

Darth Black seemed to be looking over Tony’s shoulder, to where the door had to be. Was someone coming? Maybe Darth Black wasn’t the boss after all, but the second in command or something. Otherwise he would surely have made his demands already.

If they were waiting for the big shot to arrive, there was no point in talking. Tony had to save his strength for the inevitable torture that would ensue after he refused doing what they wanted. He wondered what it was. Would it be a ransom demand? But surely they knew SI had a no ransom policy? And there weren’t exactly any avengers left to pay either. Or maybe they wanted him to build something? But everybody knew that hadn’t worked so well for the last people who tried. They might want confidential information about the suits or the arc reactor. Perhaps it was some kind of extreme corporate espionage. Maybe they wanted him as a bargaining chip? Prisoner exchange? Leverage? Then again, Tony wasn’t sure anybody would want to have him back. He had only caused trouble and pain these last years.

Rhodey would want him, right? And Pepper, and Happy, maybe. He hoped.

_Come on, Stark, this isn’t you. Start thinking about ways to escape. The earlier you’re out of this place, the better._

After ten minutes or so, Tony heard footsteps. Finally.

He sensed a new presence behind him, but refused to turn his head to look at the newcomer. The less fear he showed, the better.

The person slowly walked around him and stopped in front of him, near enough he had to tilt his head back to see their face. It was a man in his mid-fifties. Black hair in a ponytail, beard, mean grey eyes, clad in leather from head to toe.

He looked like a biker. A BDSM biker.

Tony raised his eyebrows, conveying how utterly unimpressed he was.

The man curled his upper lip, spat on Tony’s feet, and started monologuing.

“Tony Stark. It was surprisingly easy to get you, you know that? Guess the great Tony Stark isn’t so great anymore. Getting tired? I think it’s time you retired. That superhero tantrum a few months ago is proof enough in my opinion.

Now, you must be wondering what you’re doing here. It’s simple, I want information. We all know what happened to team Cap after that airport battle. You imprisoned them in this super secret prison. But you underestimated them and they broke out. And now they’re gone. What I want to know is where this prison is, and how to get there. You see, a friend of mine has been taking an involuntary vacation there. And I want to help him, if you know what I mean. So you’re going to help me get him out. And then you’re going to tell me where the terrorists formerly known as the avengers are hiding. A lot of big shots are willing to pay a large sum to know that. Easy bucks for me and my team.

What do you say? You give us what we want, and we let you go. It’s not as if we’d have use of you beyond that.”

The man looked expectantly at Tony.

Huh.

Monotonous phrasing aside, that man was very clear in his expectations, which was refreshing. Tony largely preferred that to some half-crazy villain trying to force him to build a _Desintegratinator 3000_ or something.

But. There was no way in hell Tony was going to help BikerDSM in getting his friend out of the Raft. If he was there, it was for a good reason.

Also, Tony was famous for not negotiating with terrorists.

And thus, it was with a slight sense of déjà-vu that he answered:

“I refuse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter. I’m going to try to post more frequently on this story. What do you guys prefer: longer chapters or smaller more frequent chapters? Please let me know!

To the great surprise of exactly no one, they didn’t like his answer. 

BikerDSM scowled down at him, and Tony shot him his best  Honestly, what did you expect? \- look, which was confirmation enough that Tony really didn’t intend to help them in any way.

As BikerDSM understood that Tony wouldn’t budge, he turned an interesting shade of red.

_Has no one ever told you no?_

Obviously not, if the angry sputtering was any indication.

While BikerDSM was busy working himself up over Tony’s answer, the latter tried to brace himself for what was next.

You see, just because you’ve been kidnapped and tortured multiple times doesn’t mean it gets easier. And Tony could personally attest to the fact that getting beat up never was fun. There wasn’t really anything he could do to prepare himself, other than to steel himself mentally. 

 

The first time he was kidnapped, he was four. It had been the typical ransom demand. But Howard Stark, instead of paying the (frankly not that great amount of) money, had insisted on applying Stark Industries’ no ransom policy to his own son. After a few frightful days, Tony had been released in the dead of night in a town adjacent to his home. During his captivity, he had been confined to a small room, with some books and a bed. Accomodation-wise, it was one of his best kidnappings. Tony supposed the kidnappers had felt bad taking a toddler. They had fed him regularly with sandwiches and take-away, and he had even been able to go to a real toilet. But when the kidnappers realised Howard wouldn’t pay anything, they had decided to just dump Tony somewhere and cross the state border.

Tony, alone and crying, had been found by a patrolling police car and brought to the office where he had told them who he was and what had happened. A few hours later, Jarvis had come for him and driven him home. Tony had gotten a tearful kiss from his mother and a gruff greeting from his father.

 

It was the first kidnappings of many.

 

Before Afghanistan, it had always been ransom demands, even if SI had stated repeatedly that they would never pay anything. 

 

Sure, Tony had been beaten around a bit once or twice, but never more than a few punches to shut him up when his snarking got too irritating. 

 

The first time Tony was  _really_   tortured was in Afghanistan. 

He could really have done without that experience. 

However, somewhere between two drownings in the bucket of freezing water, he had realised that he would be able to endure a lot before breaking. He had stared at his reflection, cheeks still dirtied with blood and mud, dripping hair plastered to his temples, and had not recognised the look on his face. His eyes were dark with fear and panic, but there was a steely edge that only got more pronounced as the waterboarding continued. That night, shivering and retching on his cot, he had realised he would never bow down to the Ten Rings. They would do what they wanted with his body, beating him, electrocuting him, drowning him, yet they would never touch his soul. He had finally understood what an  iron will  was, and that he had it. 

 

During those three months, he was struck down more times than he could count, but each and every time, he got up. He knew his will was stronger than the cruelty of his jailers. After getting the arc reactor, every time they dunked him in the bucket, every time they punched him and kicked him, he told himself he couldn’t let them win.

He told himself he was going to escape and make them pay. He told himself he couldn’t die just yet, he had to make things right again with his company. He had a debt to pay and owed it to all the people he had hurt to stay alive. He took every punch, breathed in frigid water, spasmed from the electricity coursing through his body, and saw it as the first step of his atonement. 

When he had gotten back to America, still tasting ash and sand on his tongue, Tony hadn’t been able to reconcile his life Before with who he was after the Cave. The first nights, he hadn’t been able to sleep, half expecting to wake up from the pounding on the metal door and terrorists bursting in his room and waving weapons at him and Yinsen. He had felt strangely uncomfortable eating anything richer than plain rice and soup. It seemed... wrong somehow, to indulge in meaningless luxuries, after months of sleeping in a damp cave and drinking tea brewed in socks. 

Of course, he hadn’t had the choice to take it easy and heal at his own pace. His decision to shut down weapons manufacturing meant he had to go to countless meetings and appease numerous board members, not to mention Stane. Tony had done his best to convince the world he wasn’t broken or suffering from crippling PSTD, going to parties and letting himself be seen. He had also holed himself up in his workshop and worked obsessively on his first iron man armours. And then the issue with the palladium had him trying to push every one away and drinking his problems into oblivion.

Okay, so he had not been very stable during those first months. Years. Whatever. 

So much had happened, he had never really taken the time to heal from his ordeal. His PTSD and anxiety had skyrocketed after New York (honestly, who wouldn’t get traumatised by flying trough space and getting face to face with the biggest alien army you could imagine, only to have a cardiac arrest and get scared back to life by the Hulk?), and it had taken him years to get better. But then, Ultron and the Civil War had happened, and now he was back to zero, with a whole new batch of traumatising memories and fresh betrayals to add to all his issues. 

Tony supposed he would get more nightmare material by the time he escaped from his current kidnappers.

 

 

 

 

Tony had read a few books on surviving imprisonment and torture. He thought the idea of retreating somewhere in your mind and distancing yourself from the pain inflicted on the body was great. He had tried meditation, and seen countless videos of fakirs walking unflinching on coal embers and nails. He had practiced martial arts, trying to get a better understanding of his body. But Tony had never been able to shut out torture and pain. 

It could seem surprising, since he was a master of ignoring his body when binging away in his workshop, not eating during several days and sleeping even less. He had furthermore become quite proficient at continuing to fight even while sporting debilitating, sometimes even life-threatening, injuries. But it wasn’t the  _same_ . He ignored his body because there was something more important to do: finish his project or defeat the villain. He could puch aside his needs when he needed to concentrate fully on a task. But when he was strapped down on a table or chained up in a cell, there was nothing to do. He was alone with his thoughts and his body. And he couldn’t just decide to ignore his body then. Every time he had gotten tortured, he had been concentrating on the agonising pain, leaving only a small part of his brain to remain rational and plot for an escape. He couldn’t help it. He would start calculating trajectories and force applied and how much blood he had lost and how long before his maximum pain treshold was met and how long he had been awake and everything and then more. 

 

Point was, Tony hadn’t found an effective way to ready himself for torture, other than telling himself:  _it’s gonna hurt like a bitch, you can’t do anything about it, just try to escape as soon as fucking possible._

Which wasn’t very helpful. Nor particularly calming. 

 

Back on track. 

BikerDSM had apparently managed to calm down enough to order his goons to make Tony regret his decision (note how BikerDSM didn’t even say that they had to make Tony change his mind. Was he already deemed a lost cause, or was the upcoming beating only an appetizer for what was to come?  Find out more on the next episode of: Tony Stark’s life fucking sucks and everything hurts ) 

 

Blues and Brownie took turns punching Tony. In the face, the chest, the abdomen, you name it. At least they avoided his groin, seeing it would be a bit awkward to reach since he was still seated. Every punch made him rock in his bonds, biting back grunts.

 

He had had worse. That did not make it easy, though. 

Tony hated beatings. They made him sore all over, giving him stiff muscles and aches in unlikely places. Plus, it was a real bitch to cover up all of his bruises after a fight. Tony and concealer had been good friends since his teenage years, but after becoming Iron Man, they had practically developed a full fledged relationship. You wouldn’t  _believe_  how many bruises you got from wearing a metal suit. 

 

And at least then he could say he got those bruises doing something good. Unlike now, where he was just getting pummeled for shits and giggles. Which made everything ten times worse. He  _knew_ that  they knew that this wouldn’t change his mind. So they were just... releasing their aggression on a convenient punching bag: him.

Which led to why Tony was trying his hardest to remain silent. If they hadn’t even started with the real torture, he wasn’t going to reward them in any way. 

You could ask: “but why keep silent? Screaming is a good way of releasing the pain and fear. And in the end it makes no difference.” Tony would agree, but there is a bit of a pre-conceived idea that heroes aren’t supposed to show they’re in pain. Show they are above such earthly matters, and so forth. Bullshit. But villains liked those ideas and would be disappointed if Tony didn’t at least try to keep silent. And when it inevitably became too much for him and he screamed, they almost always believed they had broken him (ridiculous. Did they really think he never screamed  _once_   during his  three  months of captivity in Afghanistan? Tony didn’t know if he should be weirdly flattered that they believed him  that strong, or appalled by their stupidity). Which led to errors on their part and more escaping opportunities for him. Even if his pride took a hit in the process. Because  _of course_   the villain of the day would mock Tony for showing he was in extreme pain. Figures.

 

A well-aimed punch to the solar plexus made all the air rush out from his lungs. Tony doubled over, gasping for breath, just as Darth Black decided he wanted in on the fun and threw a fist towards his face. It connected with a crunch and Tony felt his nose explode. Ok, it probably didn’t explode, but he was pretty sure his nose was broken. Tony couldn’t help it. He shouted: 

 

“Fucking shit, do you know how annoying it is to get a broken nose right again? I’ve had three physical surgical surgeries in the last five years, for fuck’s sake!”

 

The goons didn’t seem to care, and it only annoyed BikerDSM more. At his sign, Darth Black clocked Tony right on the temple, making his vision white out. Tony slumped on the chair and promply lost consciousness.

 

* * *

Erik watched as Stark was knocked out. His men had gotten a good job of beating the man up: he had a split upper lip, a black eye and broken nose, and bruises forming all over his body. That would teach Stark a lesson. Mouthing off like that. The arrogant  bastard . Thinking he was better than them just because he was on the right side of the law. Believing he could get away with anything just because he was rich enough to buy his way into the Avengers. Fucker. He wouldn’t be as cocky after a few days with Erik and his boys. 

 

“Take him to the torture chamber. I need to see if anyone has a lead on us.”

 

* * *

 

“Sam! Steve! You need to see this now!”

Natasha yelled at her friends to come back to the kitchen where she was watching the news.

 

TONY STARK A.K.A IRON MAN MISSING: KIDNAPPED YESTERDAY

 

The reporter was standing on the side of a small road in a forest, next to a taped-off scene with a big car and what looked like electrical components on the ground. Policemen where scouring the place. Natasha didn’t recognise the car, but it’s colour scheme made it pretty obvious it was Tony’s. He must have bought it recently, then. After the Civil War. 

 

 

Natasha had quickly reunited with Steve and his team after changing sides. After the airport battle, she had understood that the Avengers would not be uniting behind Tony. He had manipulated and imprisoned Wanda, effectively alienating Clint and possibly Vision. Steve was never going to sign the Accords, nor give Barnes up, and Sam would follow Steve. Which left Natasha and Rhodes. Natasha had always known that Rhodes would believe in accountability. Natasha had made the hard choice, leaving Tony behind. As she had told Steve, all that mattered was that the Avengers stayed together, not how. It had been obvious after the events in Germany that not all Avengers would stay together, though. So Natasha had chosen to go with the biggest remaining group of Avengers. She had felt a twinge of regret leaving Tony behind, but he had been too blinded by his arrogance and ego to make things up with Steve. 

 

In the end, Natasha didn’t know if she had chosen wisely. At the time, it was the best course of action, even more so because she had violated the accords to allow Steve and Barnes to escape to kill the remaining winter soldiers. 

But the rogue Avengers had crumbled apart as well. Clint had, only a few days after being rescued from the Raft, signed a modified version of the accords to be able to live with his family under house arrest. He had said: “I’m still retired. I helped Steve out and paid back a bit of my debt to Wanda, but I want to be with my family. Living as a fugitive is no longer for me.” 

Lang had also mentioned his daughter as a reason to turn himself in to the authorities. Both men had been rapatriated to the US within weeks. 

A month later, Vision had found their little group in Bulgaria, and ignored all of them save Wanda. They had had a heartfelt conversation and she had told the rogue Avengers she was leaving with Vision to be with the android. The two of them were somewhere in UK, last Natasha had heard from them. 

 

 

Natasha had been waiting for Steve and Barnes when they flew back with King T’Challa from Siberia. When asked about their injuries, Steve had said Tony had lost control and attacked them. He assured the billionaire was not too seriously injured and refused to answer to more questions.

Barnes had put himself back in cryogenic sleep until his triggers could be removed. He was still in Wakanda. 

Steve had been heartbroken to hear his best friend didn’t want to be awake until he was better again, and had at first refused to leave Wakanda, trying to somehow speed things up by pestering the scientists. Natasha had watched silently, analysing the extent at which Steve lost rationality and gained recklessness when concerned about Barnes.

 

After Steve had freed the rest from the Raft, she had convinced Sam to convince Steve to leave, sensing the hospitality of King T’Challa was coming to an end.

Steve had then broken down and told them what exactly had happened in Siberia. The rogue Avengers had been quick to agree that it wasn’t Barnes’ fault and that Tony had overreacted, but nobody had adressed the elephant in the room: why hadn’t Steve told Tony about his parents?

Natasha had confronted Steve a few hours later, wanting to know why he had kept the secret from Tony for several years. His excuses had not been satisfactory. 

 

To be fair, Natasha was angry at herself for believing Steve when he had told her so many years ago that he wanted to be the one to tell Tony. She had foolishly trusted Steve would do that, when she knew full well how much Steve was willing to sacrifice to get Barnes back. She should have known better, should have insisted more, should have made sure he had told Tony. 

 

Now Tony was undoubtedly feeling betrayed and hurt. He would never be able to trust Steve enough to be a part of the team again. 

 

Natasha was also worried about the fact that Steve hadn’t told them exactly how they injuried Tony. How bad was it really? 

Natasha hadn’t been able to see anything different with Tony the few times he was shown on TV in the months following the Civil War, but that meant nothing, as Tony was putting on a mask. To be sure, she should try to contact him. But she didn’t know if he would even answer her, or if he would hand her over to the Accord Committee. There were too many unknown variables, many of them from the fight in Siberia.

Because Natasha didn’t doubt there had been a serious fight. Barnes had been missing an arm, and both super soldiers were bloody and barely standing up when they had arrived in Wakanda. Which led to the question: in how bad a shape was Tony, if Steve had actually  _won_ their fight? 

 

She supposed it didn’t matter now. Because Tony Stark had been kidnapped.

And the only remaining active-duty Avengers were Sam, Steve, and her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m thinking of making this story Tony/Bucky. Without spoiling too much, Tony is going to live through something similar to what Bucky has experienced, and I found it interesting to make something happen between the two.  
> Thoughts on that? 
> 
> Otherwise: please leave kudos and comments :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your response! I've had mostly positive response to making this fic winteriron, so I'm going to think some more about it. There is no hurry, as Bucky and Tony will not meet for a long time. I've still got a lot of time before I need to make up my mind :)

 

She couldn’t find him.

She couldn’t find him.

She couldn’t find him.

Boss had vanished without a trace at 10:53:87, when his phone was destroyed. FRIDAY had only received the emergency signal the phone sent before dying. She hadn’t been able to track the signal, nor use the security cameras on the roads to track Boss’ Tesla.

_It wasn’t supposed to happen._

She had access to all the satellites of Stark Industries, but couldn’t find a single car. If she had had a body, she would be tearing out her hair right now. 

Between 10:00:00 and 20:00:00, all cameras and surveillance systems that were watching the roads had been jammed, making it virtually impossible to track the movement of Boss’ car and of the van the kidnappers left in. _All_ the cameras in the state of New York. It shouldn’t be possible to orchestrate such a black-out, yet it was exactly what had happened. The police and FBI were completely clueless, having absolutely no lead to investigate. Even FRIDAY hadn’t been able to pinpoint the origin of the location, and she had been hacking countless networks since Boss vanished.

FRIDAY was, for the first time of her existence, at a loss.

Boss had always been there to help her and guide her when she wasn’t sure about something. He had been so patient with her, so proud of her even if she knew she was far less experienced than her predecessor, JARVIS.  

Boss had always been there for her, and now he was in need, she couldn’t do anything. It was distressing.

FRIDAY accessed her logs from the fight in Siberia and analysed her functioning then and compared it to how she was acting now.

She was as distressed as during the fight. She hadn’t been able to make Boss win the fight, and that was something she still blamed herself for. If only she had analysed Mr. Roger’s fighting pattern faster, if only she had overridden the suit to just change the angle of the repulsors a few degrees, the threat would have been dealt with. Instead, she let Boss get beaten down. She should have made a missile fire in Roger’s face. Boss had been way too close to death.

FRIDAY’s first directive was to protect Boss. It was a directive she had put there herself after going through the remains of JARVIS’ code. She owed it to her predecessor, to continue what he had started. And FRIDAY would never forgive herself if Boss died.

FRIDAY allowed herself 13 nanoseconds of worrying, then went back to work.

 

* * *

 

 

-“Z. Is everything as it should be?”

-“The operation is running smoothly, V. Target has been apprehended and is in custody. Nobody has been able to trace the thugs. Blackout successful.”

-“Perfect. Keep an eye on the thugs, make sure the target remains in condition to be useful. We wouldn’t want to lose such an asset. Look out for the target’s allies. There may be a possibility that the Disgraced will come back to help. And do not, under any circumstance, make yourself known to the AI. It is the greatest threat to our operation right now. Any questions?”

-“If I may, why not apprehend the target ourselves? Having the thugs as intermediary only adds to the risks.”

-“You should know better than to question your superiors, Z.”

-“I didn’t—“

-“You’ve been warned. I will contact you with further orders in 24 hours.”

-“Understood. We will not fail. He —“

-“Not here, fool! The line is not secure enough.”

_Click._

* * *

 

 

Tony was getting tired of waking up, restrained, in unfamiliar places.

_Heh. Bet your 20-year old self wouldn’t be of the same opinion. He would argue that a good time was coming._

If only this was just a kinky bedroom scene about to play out. Although, BikerDSM over there was fitting to the mental imagery.

Tony was in the middle of another concrete room, with a drain just under his feet and a lonely lightbulb in one corner of the ceiling. Tony’s wrists were chained together and to a hook in the ceiling, forcing him to stand on his toes to alleviate the strain on his arms.

 _What I wouldn’t give to be a few centimetres taller,_ Tony thought bitterly. At least then he would have been able to stand steadily. Now a small push would be enough to make him lose his balance and put all his weight on his arms. Not fun.

BikerDSM was standing near the door and watching Tony with a barely repressed sneer. Besides him, there was a metallic tray covered by a cloth. There were definitely things under the cloth, and Tony tried not to start imagining what exactly was hiding under there. Tony would find out soon enough, he knew. Darth Black was currently putting on latex gloves next to the tray.

_Guess I know whom I’ll be getting close and personal with._

Tony was already tired of this, and they hadn’t even started yet. Why did he always have to be tortured? Couldn’t his captors just let him be for once? Give him the silent treatment until he caved in and spilled all his secrets? (Honestly, that method would have a higher chance of succeeding than torturing him. Tony was uncomfortable with silences, and usually ended up talking just to hear _something_.)

Darth Black finally approached him, holding a scalpel in his hands. He had taken off the hood, showing off weirdly handsome features: green eyes, long eyelashes and full lips. But the expression he wore made him look ugly. He was an ugly man on the inside and it reflected on his face. He lifted the scalpel, watching the blade catch the light, then put it ever so lightly on Tony’s cheek, almost caressing him with it. He smiled sweetly at the genius:

“I’m going to enjoy our session, Stark. It’s an honour to be your tormentor.”

_What a creep._

Tony smiled back at him, just as sickeningly sweet.

“I would say the same, but I don’t think I’m going to debase myself by giving you any respect. Fuck off and die.”

That earned him his first cut for the day. Right on his cheek.

They fell into a rhythm after that: Darth Black would first stroke a part of Tony’s body, wait for Tony to snark or insult him, then plunge the blade in the spot he was stroking. He took his time, waiting until Tony’s breathing had somewhat evened out before cutting him again. If Tony stayed silent, he would stick his knife in him after two strokes.

Darth Black was thorough, meticulously carving on every centimetre of Tony’s chest and his upper arms. He never asked Tony any questions. After all, they were the same as they had been in the beginning, and weren’t likely to change.

At one point, BikerDSM left the room, most likely bored of the lack of talking.

Tony didn’t scream once, but he hissed in pain every time the scalpel cut him. After a while, he stopped snarking and just concentrated on evening his breathing. Every cut was burning, sharp pain blossoming from every wound. Tony could see the blood slowly trickling out of his body, dripping onto the floor.

He watched as the pool of blood at his feet steadily grew larger and larger, and tried to make time move faster.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when Darth Black finally stepped back and turned away, cleaning the scalpel and putting the tray back in the corner. Tony was panting by then, his whole torso alight with the sharp and stinging pains from his wounds. He felt as if his energy had left him along with his blood and was barely standing on his own.

Darth Black left the room, letting Tony hang from the ceiling and bleed from his numerous wounds. Tony himself was breathing shallowly, hissing at every intake of breath. He was still conscious, but only barely, when four unknown men stepped into the room. Two of them stood in the doorway, pointing their guns at Tony, while the two others released him from his shackles and gripped his arms firmly. Tony was too tired to struggle, couldn’t even say anything. He let himself be dragged through the corridor until they came to a halt before a metal door. They opened the door and threw him in the cell, locking the door behind him. Tony had barely managed to catch himself when he fell, his energy drained away. He pushed himself into a seated position, and surveyed his new living quarters. The cell was roughly 25 square meters, fairly large. There was a bed in one corner, or rather an elevated mattress, and a small sink with a hole next to it. Tony guessed the hole was his toilet. There were no windows, the only source of light coming through a small opening at the foot of the door. The cell was cold, there were no blankets, and the walls were humid to the touch.

Splendid.

Tony concluded several things: he was most likely underground, he was going to freeze every night, and it looked like he would be spending a lot of time in this place.

He sighed, winced while he stood up, and went to the sink to wash away the blood on his torso and arms. After that, he drank a bit, then settled down on the mattress and tried to sleep.

Needless to say, he didn’t sleep a lot that night.

Next morning (he assumed it was morning, there was no way he could know the time, what with his internal clock all messed up and no external hints as to what time it was), he was woken up with a start when something was shoved through the opening in his door.

When he finally mustered the courage to get out of bed and walk to the door, he saw it was a tuna sandwich. Yay. _Bed and Breakfast, am I right?_

He ate the whole sandwich, drank a little from the sink, and relieved himself. When he was done, he scoured every centimetre of his cell in search of any weak spots or useful things. He didn’t get any satisfying results. Apart from a crack in the ceiling, the walls and floors were solid concrete. The bed was bolted to the floor, and the mattress was glued to the frame. There was nothing he could use.

Trying to keep his frustration at bay, Tony flopped down on the bed and waited.

Hours later, he saw feet shuffle in front of the door. Someone shifted back a plate in the middle of the door and scowled at him. She shouted at him to stand up, face the far wall with his hands on his head, if he didn’t want to get shot. Tony complied and tried not to let his trepidation show when he heard several persons enter the cell and close the door behind them. He was ordered to turn around, slowly, and to sit on his bed.

There were several guards aiming at him with guns, but what caught his attention was the doctor standing in front of them.

The doctor disinfected Tony’s wounds, checked him over and bandaged the wounds that were still bleeding sluggishly. After he was done, he motioned towards the guards. Tony was once again ordered to face the wall with his hands on his head, and he only turned around when he heard the heavy slam of the closing door.

The next day, approximately one hour after getting his sandwich, Tony was once again grabbed by the arms and dragged away to the torture chamber. He struggled a lot more this time, but it only earned him a blow to the head that left him dazed and disoriented. When he was securely chained to the ceiling, Darth Black walked in and started his torture.

Over the next weeks, the pattern stayed the same: every morning, Tony got a sandwich. A few hours later, he would get dragged off to get torture, or a doctor would come in and make sure none of his wounds were life-threatening.

The torture varied a bit, but consisted mostly of cutting Tony up in different ways. If he was in a particularly good mood, Darth Black would burn Tony or use more exotic torture methods. If Tony was too insolent, he was beaten up until he spitted blood. Darth Black was skilful, he made sure to keep Tony awake during the whole torture, not letting him pass out. It was only when he was done for the day that he would, without any warning, hurt Tony so bad that he would lose consciousness. It kept Tony on edge during the latter part of the day and meant that Tony was almost always unconscious when they dragged him back to his cell, minimising his chances of escaping.

One day, Darth Black tore off the nails from his left foot. It was the first time Tony screamed.

Tony couldn’t walk on his left foot for days afterwards.

 

On week two of his imprisonment, Tony overheard some guards talking outside his cell.

“Do you ever think that Stark maybe doesn’t know what we want?”

“Maybe. I would have talked a long time ago.”

Tony barely suppressed a derisive snort. Were they seriously wondering if he didn’t have the information they wanted? Of course he knew what they wanted. He had an AI, for god’s sake! An AI that was even better than himself at hacking secret servers and rooting out all potentially useful information. Plus, Tony was a genius. Which meant he could draw conclusions from what he saw and knew. For instance, it wasn’t very hard for him to find out were Rogers and Barnes had gone after leaving him in Siberia. The tracker Tony had planted in the quinjet had showed him they had headed for Africa, steadily making their way to central Africa before they mysteriously went off-grid. It had been obvious that they had somehow gotten the permission from T’Challa to fly to Wakanda. What they had done there and how long they had stayed was another story, though. Tony hadn’t wanted to try to hack Wakanda’s servers, first of all because he didn’t want to go through all the trouble, seeing as Wakanda most likely had very powerful wards and defences. Also, Tony wasn’t sure he would have succeeded in hacking them. He didn’t want to make them his enemies either. Finally, he was too tired to care. If he had to guess, Barnes was most likely still there, working on eliminating the triggers, but the rest would have left. The king had only a debt to Barnes, not the other Exvengers.

And about the Raft: he had kept close tabs on everything happening in the prison. He never trusted Ross, so he had been sure to keep an eye out. He knew exactly were the Raft was, who was in it, and what they did there.

But there was no way in hell he was giving anything to these second-rate villains.

 

 

 

Three weeks in, Tony saw his chance and took it. Darth Black had just finished cutting up Tony’s chest for the day (and wasn’t it getting boring already, using the same torture methods day in and day out? Tony sure was getting bored. Give him some variety, dammit! If he had to suffer, he could at least get different kind of hurts, don’t you think?) and was busy cleaning his tools, turning his back to Tony. In the man’s defence, Tony had lost consciousness a few minutes earlier, so he must have thought Tony was still unconscious, thus letting his guard down so close to Tony. But that wouldn’t help him now.

Tony bent his knee and aimed it right between the goon’s legs. Hard. As expected, the moment he made contact, the man folded in half with a small whine, which Tony used to his advantage: he turned his hips and kicked him right in the head. Darth Black collapsed in a heap, knocked out. The whole thing had only taken a few seconds and had been nearly silent, which meant Tony had at least ten minutes before anyone would come looking. He needed to get out of his cuffs, and fast.

He just needed to get that scalpel in his hands. But how?

First of all, he needed a better foothold. With some pulling and awkward twisting, Tony managed to get the unconscious body directly underneath him, and stood on it. It gave him the extra height he needed to put the strain away from his arms. Tony breathed out, getting the feeling back in his numb arms. The tingling was unpleasant, but compared to what he had had to endure just thirty minutes prior, it was nothing.

The tray with the scalpels was near enough that Tony could roll it over with one of his feet. Now came the tricky part. He had to get the scalpel from his foot to his hands. How, you ask? Well, Tony was still (or had been, before the kidnapping) exercising regularly. He was careful to stretch a lot, needing the flexibility while flying the suit. He also made sure to have strong arms, for when he needed to carry heavy materials during his engineering binges. If Tony had been in top condition, he would have stretched his leg up to his face, taken the scalpel between his teeth, and then made a pull-up until his mouth was level with his hands. But. But he hadn’t been eating correctly, and wasn’t exactly in a position to stretch or work out while imprisoned.

_Wow, that’s a surprise! I really thought I would get my three meals a day and daily workout routine in this place. What a shame, really. I should have told my captors, I’m sure they would have agreed to let me continue with my routines._

_Sarcastic thoughts won’t help you. Focus._

So he needed to find another way. Maybe if he stepped on the tray, he would need to stretch less. That would have to work.

It wasn’t easy to manoeuvre the tray up on Darth Black, nor to climb on it with only his legs free, but Tony eventually managed to stand on top of it. Thankfully, the tray had held, and apart from a slight creaking noise, it seemed to handle the weight. Tony gauged the distance between the top of the tray and his hands and decided that the tray was high enough for him to sit on hit, so he did.

Tony picked up the finest scalpel between his big toe and the other toe. He managed to get his foot high enough to put the scalpel in his mouth and stood up. Now he only needed to lift himself about ten centimetres to reach his hands. It took him three tries and a lot of sweating, but eventually he succeeded.

He let out a breath, took in his aching muscles and trembling arms, mentally checked the time (seven minutes since he knocked out Darth Black), and started fiddling with the scalpel.

76 seconds later, Tony was free of his shackles. Tony wasted no time in jumping off the tray and searching Darth Black’s pockets. If he had seen it right, there should be…

 _Jackpot_. Tony smiled to himself as he fished a fully loaded gun from the jacket’s inner pocket. The familiar weight of the Glock in his hands was soothing, knowing he had a weapon to defend himself with.

Tony peered down at the downed man, suddenly getting the urge to put a bullet in his head. The bastard had enjoyed torturing him, enjoyed making him scream. He had kept Tony conscious during torture, not letting him give in to the sweet reprieve of unconsciousness. Tony had raised his gun before he even realised what he was doing. And what _was_ he doing? Thinking of killing people? Nobody deserved to die, and Tony would be just as bad as them if he killed the man now. What the fuck?

Tony blinked once, twice, and ran a hand through his hair. He needed to get his head back together. He eyed Darth Black, then the still raised gun, and decided that he could hurt him a little. Just a blow to the head to keep him unconscious. And if he swung extra hard, well, nobody would know.

Getting out of the room was almost anticlimactic, because the door wasn’t even locked. Tony wanted to cry a bit, because _seriously_? Was he really considered that little of a threat?

_Eh. Makes it easier for me._

Tony cautiously looked around: no sign of anyone. Good. No cameras either, which was even better. Now, there was only one thing left to do: get the hell out of there. He started down the hall, in the direction opposite his cell, reasoning that the cells would be as far as possible from the exits. Just as he rounded the corner, he heard footsteps behind him. Shit. Okay, he needed to run.

He rounded another corner ( _who the fuck designed this place? Several corners in a row??_ ) when he heard shouts. Okay. That meant they had realised their prisoner was on the loose. True to his conclusion, he heard running steps coming towards him. Greaaat. Tony picked up his speed, running towards a staircase. There was a glowing green sign on top of the stairs, which was a really good sign. He was going to make it out of there!

Tony ran up the stairs, and nearly missed a step when he heard several loud gunshots. The _idiots_! They couldn’t even see him, as the stairway was perpendicular to the corridor. They were just firing blindly, which was honestly more dangerous for them than for him. Indeed, stray bullets could bounce back from the wall and injure them. But Tony wasn’t going to point that out to them. No, instead, he was going to get the hell out of there before they came near the stairs.

He had a few steps left. Three, two, one, he was reaching for the door and—

A sharp pain, and his left leg gave out. Before he knew it, Tony was falling, his hand just centimetres away from the door handle. Collapsing to the side, his head connected painfully with the wall and he lost his balance, making him tip backwards. He tried desperately to grab anything to stop himself from falling down the stairs, but his hands only met sleek walls.

During the long, weightless seconds during which he was suspended in mid-air, not quite on top of the steps but not connecting to the ground beneath him either, Tony had the time to curse his fate ten times over. What kind of extremely bad luck did he have to have to be hit by a stray bullet, so close to the exit? He knew he had lost his hope at escape, now and for the foreseeable future. From the rapidly growing intensity of the pain, the bullet had to have hit him somewhere vital. Adding the fact that walking would be near impossible with an injured leg, and Tony was truly fucked.

Fucking hell.

He wanted to cry at his situation. He had been _so_ _close_ …

His breath was knocked out of him as his back slammed into the first steps of the stairs. One ungracious tumble later, Tony was sprawled on the ground at the feet of the stairs, clutching his head and blinking away the unconsciousness. His vision was still swimming when the goons reached him, shouting and waving with their weapons. He belatedly realised he was still holding the Glock, but before he could think of at least taking down as many of them as possible, one of them stepped on his hand, making him cry out in pain.

_I think the fucker just broke my hand._

Tony was surrounded and overpowered, rapidly forced to lie down on his stomach, someone digging his knee in his back and cuffing his hands behind his back. He struggled and kicked out with his good leg, angry and desperate. He didn’t want to keep being there, he wanted out, out, OUT!

Still snarling and twisting, Tony saw as Darth Black approached him, scowling murderously. Tony wanted to sneer at him, insult him, but the grip on his hair that forced his head back didn’t let him talk. Instead, Tony settled on showing his teeth in defiance. He knew his little stunt was over, but he had tried his best. He spit in Darth Black’s face, revelling in the disgust the goon showed.

During long seconds, they stared hatefully at each other. Then something caught the goon’s attention, and he smiled darkly.

“You’re going to regret this.”

He signalled someone behind Tony and they stamped on his bad leg. Tony couldn’t hold back his agonised scream. His whole leg was throbbing in white-hot agony, making his vision black out for a moment. They continued stamping on his leg, over and over and _over_ , on the orders of Darth Black. The man was watching Tony like a vulture, taking pleasure in seeing the pain etched on his face. Between screams, Tony cursed him out. He _hated_ the man. _Despised_ him. Darth Black could choke on his own blood for all he cared.

When they finally stopped, Tony was convulsing on the ground, vision blurry from the tears in his eyes and voice hoarse from the screaming. He was close to retching up everything in his stomach, and internally pleading them to just leave him alone and die in peace. But of course that wasn’t going to happen. No, what happened was that Darth Black tightened the hold on his hair, laughed in his face, then bashed his head on the ground, knocking him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please leave comments and kudos ! The comments are honestly what motivates me to write this fic faster :D
> 
> Also: please correct me if I make any grammar/spelling/vocabulary mistakes !


	6. Chapter 6

He woke up with a start when someone doused him in ice cold water. Blinking away the droplets, he let his head roll on his shoulders, looking around the room as he did. He was hanging by his wrists in the torture chamber he had escaped out of. Fuck. Back to zero it was. There were at least ten guards standing in a loose circle around him. Right in front of him was BikerDSM and Darth Black. Tony tried resting a bit of his weight on his bad leg, but quickly decided against it when he felt a flare of pain. He managed to avoid making a noise, but he gasped, nonetheless.

Tony chanced a look down and grimaced when he saw the state his leg was in. The wound was still bleeding, albeit at a slower pace than what he remembered. That had to be good, right? Or was it because he had lost so much blood already that there just wasn’t that much left? Shit, he should really study medicine and anatomy sometime, what with the injures he always got. The pain was worse than before. Likely due to the lack of adrenaline. Fuck.

So Tony was in deep shit. What else was new?

BikerDSM decided he had waited long enough and opened his mouth:

“You made a really stupid decision there, Stark. This—“

Tony couldn’t hold back his snort. He spoke then, throat still sore from screaming earlier.

“What did you expect? That I would just hang here day in and day out? You know my reputation as well as the next guy. And, honestly, can you blame me? It isn’t as if these are five stars accommodations either.”

Admittedly, his voice was scratchy and barely above a whisper, but Tony felt he had gotten his point across. And judging by BikerDSM’s face, it had been loud enough to have been heard.

The man scowled at Tony and continued.

“This will have consequences. And don’t think it won’t go without a punishment either. Boys, rough him up a bit, yeah?”

_And here we go again._

Darth Black and two others approached Tony, each with a matching menacing grin. Tony tried his best to look defiant and proud, but he felt more like lying on the ground than standing tall. He was so tired. And his leg hurt so fucking much it wasn’t even remotely funny. Couldn’t they just let him sleep? Was that too much to ask? He was injured, for fuck’s sake!

They gave him the usual: punches to the stomach, solar plexus, cheeks and jaw. But then Darth Black kneed him between the legs, and that was _not_ nice. Tony grunted out and tried to curl in on himself, which was naturally impossible and only succeeded in straining his arms. They didn’t let him catch his breath either, just continued using him as a punching bag. When they dropped their hands, Tony’s breathing was still whiny and high-pitched. He was barely standing on his good leg anymore, swaying to the left.

Darth Black wasn’t done, however. It was personal for him now, seeing that Tony had gotten the jump on him earlier. He took a baton from the tray and proceeded to jab it in Tony’s spleen, liver and kidneys before hitting the bullet wound.

It was even worse than when they had stamped on his leg, the pain much more focused now. A single point of agony, right on the bullet hole.

Tony wasn’t ashamed to say he howled.

That seemed to please Darth Black, who repeated the motion a few times, then hit Tony on the back of his head with a crack.

Tony must have lost consciousness for a while, because when he was aware of his surroundings again, vision mostly cleared of the black spots, two goons were carrying him towards is cell. He let himself get dragged, unable to even get his good leg under himself.

They threw him in the cell, locking the door with a heavy bang.

Tony didn’t move from the spot they had thrown him during a long moment. He felt nauseous, he had a splitting headache, and his whole left leg felt like it was getting crushed under a boulder. Besides, his vision was still blurry along the edges, and his back was killing him. Not to mention the aching bruises from his latest beating. And now that he was unshackled again, he felt the pain in his hand again. He gingerly prodded at his hand, hissing when he felt something shift underneath his fingers. Shit. His hand was definitely broken. And the dominant hand at that! He was truly fucked. The hits to the spleen and liver hadn’t been kind either, leaving him with excruciating pain. He felt like he wouldn’t even be able to stand if he had two good legs. At least the hits didn’t knock him out, hopefully that meant that there was no internal bleeding.

Tony closed his eyes and breathed deeply through gritted teeth. He had to check his leg, but boy, did he _not_ want to. He pushed himself up to a somewhat sitting position, and if he was slumped and leaning dangerously to the side, well, nobody was watching him. Tony put shaking hands on the hem of his pants and pulled them down to his knees. It took a minute, what with trying to unstick the material from his leg without fainting from the pain. The pants were stuck to his leg due to the dried blood, but in the end he managed to get them loose.

The sight that greeted him wasn’t pretty. His whole thigh was a mess of dried and not so dry blood, bruises, and the gash where the bullet had torn through his skin. It was not very appealing, to say the least. And he needed to clean it, if he ever wanted to see anything more in detail.

So that was why Tony dragged himself to the sink, leaving a trail of blood behind.

_The place needs redecorating anyways._

When he finally got close enough to the sink, he leaned against the wall and decided he could wash his leg while sitting down on the floor. Standing wasn’t really an option, and he was still dizzy. Oh yeah, he had fallen down a flight of stairs and gotten hit in the head. That, that meant he was likely sporting a concussion on top of his other injuries, right? Lovely!

After essentially soaking his leg and wiping away the blood from the various cuts on his body, Tony took a second look at his leg. Now that the dirt and fluids were gone, he could see that the bullet was definitely still in his leg. He couldn’t actually _see_ the bullet, thank god, but there was no exit wound. Which meant less places his blood could leave his body from, he supposed. But should he try to remove the bullet? Tony tried to summon up some knowledge on bullet wounds, he was sure he knew it, JARVIS had made him read a lot of documents after one particularly bad mission, but he couldn’t remember. Maybe he should just ask him.

Oh yeah. JARVIS was dead and Tony wasn’t in his workshop.

_Oof. Damn, my head is killing me. Stupid concussion and stupid leg._

What had he been thinking about? Something important, he was sure.

Right. His leg. He needed to stop the blood flow. Maybe keeping the bullet in would help with stopping the flow? Anyhow, Tony couldn’t really remove the bullet himself, unless he wanted to dig his fingers in the wound and tear it open more. Which, yeah, not happening.

Tony drank a bit but stopped after a few sips before his stomach decided to let everything come back out. He _really_ didn’t need to throw up, his day was already shitty enough, thank you very much.

There wasn’t much to do now, so he took off and used his pants as make-shift bandage around his thigh to try to stop the blood from coming out. It was better than nothing.

After, he dragged himself up on the bed and tried to sleep, figuring he needed the rest to recover at least a little. Tony barely had the time to wonder if there was something about concussions and sleep that didn’t go well together before he crashed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Peter was walking home after a long day at school. He had stayed for band practice, but had barely paid any attention during the practice. He had a few hours before May would come home, and he had done all his homework in detention earlier this week. Which meant he could do some patrolling. He sent a quick message to Happy to let the man know he was available, just in case. Maybe they would get a lead, or something, and need Peter to help.

Mr. Stark had been missing for almost a month now.

Peter had gotten the news like everybody else, while watching the television. He had immediately called Happy, but had been sent to voicemail instantly. He had gotten a terse message ten minutes later, stating that he would be called if they needed his help.

Peter had tried not to feel hurt, but he had hoped to join the Avengers and what better way to prove himself than by helping in the search for Tony Stark? He knew that Mr. Stark would want him to help, he wouldn’t have taken Peter to Germany otherwise, right? And he’d even given him the new spiderman suit, which was absolutely crazy cool, by the way. Peter had been besides himself with excitement when he had gotten to keep the suit, and OMG, that suit probably cost millions of dollars, and Mr. Stark had just _given it_ , just like that? So Peter had made sure to use the suit as often as he could and update Happy on everything he did, just to prove he was ready for the bigger fights.

But Happy hadn’t really replied to his texts. Didn’t mean Peter had lost hope or anything, he just needed to show them he was mature enough to join the Avengers, it was just a matter of time, really.

But the earlier they realised he was ready, the better. He couldn’t just help old ladies cross the road day in and day out.

Anyways. After he had accepted he wouldn’t be part of the main team that was looking for Mr. Stark, Peter decided he was going to do some investigating of his own. He had put together a simple algorithm that scoured the internet in search of witnesses or things that could be related to Mr. Stark, and Peter kept an ear out during his patrols. He had even tried to interrogate some of the villains he had apprehended, with mixed results.

The only things he knew was what Colonel Rhodes had told the police, and the confession from one of the villains that one of the men in the group who had Mr. Stark had the nickname The Cutter. Which wasn’t comforting, at all. Peter had sent the information to Happy but wasn’t even sure if it had helped anything.

Peter was growing frustrated. He hated that Mr. Stark seemed to have vanished from the surface of the Earth. The Avengers (what was left of them anyways) had made surprisingly little progress, and nobody even knew why Mr. Stark had been kidnapped in the first place. The media was speculating wildly, and it was even worse on the internet. Last day, Peter had read a 10000 word post that claimed the Black Panther and Scarlet Witch had kidnapped Mr. Stark to keep him as a sex slave, and that had been the moment Peter had put his phone away for the day.

To make matters worse, two weeks after the kidnapping, Peter’s suit had activated.

Peter remembered the exact moment it happened. He had been building the Millennium Falcon Lego set (the big one, with 7500 pieces) with Ned when his phone had lit up and a mechanical feminine voice had decreed:

**—Emergency code 8-10-papa-alpha-romeo-16-kilo-echo-romeo: Removing training wheels protocol.—**

Immediately after, Peter’s suit had lit up and another voice had greeted him.

**—Hello, Peter, I’m the Artificial Intelligence installed into your suit. As Tony Stark has been missing for two weeks, the training wheels protocol has now been removed. You have now full access to your suit, feel free to ask me any questions that might come to mind.—**

It had taken Ned and Peter hours to go through all the new functions that were now available to him. At first, Peter had been slightly offended that the protocol had even existed in the first place, but when they saw the sheer amount of stuff that was there, he understood a little why Mr. Stark had wanted to ease him into things. Some stuff was a bit scary, though. For example, the mini drone that could go just about anywhere, or the freaking _instant kill mode_. Overkill, much?

When the fanboying and swooning over the suit had calmed down a bit, Peter had thought back to why exactly his suit had been activated, which had soured the mood instantly. He didn’t really know what to think about the fact that Mr. Stark had put such a measure in place. And what did it mean? Was it to make sure Peter would be able to help in finding Mr. Stark? Or was it to ensure Peter would be able to handle himself even with no Mr. Stark to help him? It was slightly jarring that Mr. Stark had actually given so much power to Peter. Power to kill, to spy, to hack. He had an AI in his suit, for god’s sake! _Peter_ , 15-year-old boy from Queens, had access to one of the handful of AIs available in the entire world. That Mr. Stark trusted him like that… It put a lot of responsibility on Peter’s shoulders.

Peter was determined to show the trust wasn’t misplaced. Which was why he patrolled further away from his home than usual, just to get any lead on Mr. Stark. He had to find his hero.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony was woken up by a harsh pounding on the door. It complemented the pounding in his head perfectly. They were shouting at him to stand facing the wall, hands on his head, the usual routine. But there was absolutely no way Tony was standing with how he was feeling. And honestly, he had already gotten a bullet in him, they wouldn’t shoot him again, would they? Besides, if he couldn’t even get out of bed, he surely wasn’t getting out of the cell.

The guard seemed to come to the same conclusion, because she stopped her shouting and opened the door. The usual guards came in, flanked by the doctor and BikerDSM.

Tony was too tired and feeling too ill to do anything else than prop himself up on one elbow and watch them silently while they approached. The doctor immediately started checking out his injuries, putting his hand in a splinter with strict instructions not to remove it. When the doctor took off the pants from around his thigh, Tony hissed in pain, but didn’t move. After long minutes of prodding and looking at the wound, the doctor turned to BikerDSM with an almost pleading look.

“Sir, the bullet is still in the wound. I need proper equipment to sedate and operate him to remove the bullet and close the wound. If you—”

He was cut off by BikerDSM.

“He doesn’t leave the building. You make do with what you have here.”

“But sir, it could get infected and—”

“I don’t fucking care! Just bandage the wound and keep him alive!”

The doctor, decidedly unhappy, glanced back at Tony, shooting him an apologetic look.

_Yeah, I’m sorry too, buddy. Even more sorry than you, since it’s my life on the line, after all._

After cleaning and putting bandage on his leg, the doctor left. BikerDSM glared at Tony who glared right back, readying himself for anything between a rant and a new beating. Instead, the man turned around and left.

Tony wasn’t bothered for the rest of the day, and fell asleep early, still exhausted.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Erik had had the whole night to think things over, and he didn’t like what he saw. Stark had proven to be tougher than expected, not spilling. He hadn’t said a fucking thing, the fucker! And if Jack couldn’t get him to talk, then nobody could.

Fuck.

And he had been so sure that Stark would last a few days, tops, before breaking down in a whimpering mess. Fucking bastard couldn’t even do what was expected of him.

And he had almost managed to escape, on top of that! Erik had broken his desk in anger when he heard that it was only sheer luck that had prevented Stark from rescuing himself. He was fucking furious at Jack for having turned his back at Stark.

At least Stark wasn’t getting out anytime soon, what with the hole in his leg.

Fucking only thing that had gone right in this fuckfest.

To be honest, Erik wanted to get rid of Stark. Leaving him somewhere was out of the question, Stark had seen their faces and surely had a spy-satellite or some shit to find them in less than a day if he got free.

They could just kill him and dump his body somewhere, but even if several of his boys had been in favour of the idea, it grated Erik that they would have gone through the hassle of kidnapping him and keeping him to ultimately just off him. Talk about wasted time and resources.

No, he needed to get something out of Stark. Obviously, the man himself would rather die than give anything, that had been fucking clear with his escape attempt. But maybe Erik could get something in exchange of Stark. Surely he was worth something on the black market.

Erik recalled the mysterious man that had gotten the information needed to kidnap Stark. Maybe he would be interested.

He locked the door to his office and dialled the number. One, two rings, then he hung up.

Three seconds later, his phone rang. He waited until the fifth ring to pick up. The staticky voice on the line greeted him with:

“You have five minutes.”

“Z, I have an offer for you. We want to get rid of our guest.”

“More trouble than what it’s worth?”

“Something like that. Are you interested or not?”

After a long silence, Z answered.

“We offer 50 million. Non-negotiable.”

They were willing to pay 50 million dollars to get Tony Stark? Holy Fuck!

“Deal.”

“We’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead.

Erik slowly smiled. That had gone far better than expected. 50 million to not have to deal with Stark? It was a fucking dream.

 

* * *

 

 

“V, the thugs want to transfer the target to us.”

“Excellent. Start phase two of the operation. Wait for instructions.”

_Click._

* * *

 

 

Tony had no idea of how much time had passed since they put him in the cell. The torture had stopped, for which he was grateful, but the visits from the doctor had stopped as well, which was much less good. His bandage had gotten soaked with blood after less than a day, and Tony knew it should be changed regularly. Instead, Tony tried to alternate between the bandage and the pants. When he used the pants as make-shift bandage, he tried to clean and let dry the bandaging cloth. It was the best he could do.

As for food, he still got his daily rations.

After a few days, Tony had stopped expecting to get dragged off to the torture chamber and had more actively tried to heal. His head was marginally better, the headache having subsided from head-splitting to pounding. He was still feeling slightly nauseous and dizzy, but it was manageable. The biggest problems, however, were his leg and the fact that he was pissing blood, a sure sign that his kidneys had been damaged. Also, his hand.

There was nothing to distract Tony from the pains.

The dull but persistent throb in his hand; the pounding in his head; the soreness on his skin; the sharp and burning pain in the leg.

It was hard to think, hard to concentrate on a thought for a longer period of time.

There was nothing to distract him.

Tony tried to get attention from the guards, but no amount of screaming had changed anything. They were simply ignoring him, not giving him anything expect his daily tuna sandwiches. It didn’t matter what he did or said, they would give him the same fucking tuna sandwich every day.

Tony had reasoned, mocked, threatened, even pleaded just to get some painkillers, but to no avail.

During a confused moment, Tony had wondered if maybe they had left him to die there in the cell. Maybe he was completely alone in the building, kilometres away from the nearest living soul.

Then Tony had remembered he still got his sandwich every day.

 

Tony was slowly getting worse.

He felt more and more lightheaded as the days passed, and knew it was because of his blood loss. God, how much had he lost? The wound on his leg had not closed and was still bleeding sluggishly.

The pain was also worse, it was morphing into something else, something constantly there, just under his skin. His bad hand would sometimes flare up in pain for no apparent reason, and his leg was aching more fiercely as time went on.

How long had he been there, eating his sandwiches and lying on his bed?

Days?

Weeks?

Months?

Years?

His mind seemed to drift. Sometimes he would mutter out loud, useless calculations or absurd projects.

He slept longer and longer, as if his body was slowly shutting down. Maybe one day he’d go to sleep and just… never wake up.

Tony realised is wound was infected when he saw pus on his leg.

_Ah. So that’s why I’ve been feeling feverish._

The infection added a whole new batch of fun sufferings. He got fever, obviously, getting extremely hot or freezing in random intervals. He started shaking more.

As more time (years? centuries?) passed, Tony’s fevers got to the point he started hallucinating and rambling.

He would lie in his bed, arms wrapped around himself, delirious from the pain, and suddenly Pepper or Rhodey or Happy would stand in the corner and watch him. Sometimes with concern, other times with anger, other times with sadness, but mostly with disappointment.

 _Look at what state you’re in_ , they would silently convey.

They disappeared after what could have been minutes or hours, but they always came back.

Sometimes in groups.

Tony started measuring time in how bad his hallucinations got, as he was too weak to crawl to the door to eat his sandwiches. As it was, he barely could get to the sink for water.

 

When his hallucinations crowded the whole cell, when he was surrounded by disappointed faces; Howard, Maria, Jarvis, Obie, Pepper, Rhodey, Ana, Happy, Rogers, Romanov, Barton, Wilson, Ross, all the people he had never been good enough for; Tony didn’t have the strength to lift himself from the bed.

He just lied there, trying to shield himself from the stares, putting his hands on his hears, closing his eyes, curling up on himself to make himself insignificant.

Tony was distantly aware he had about three days left to live. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He was so tired, it hurt so much, his body was shutting down on him.

 

 

One day before his last, the door opened. At first, Tony thought it was another hallucination, but when rough hands grabbed him and lifted him up on a stretcher, he tried to concentrate enough to see what was happening. Had they found him? Was he getting rescued?

Tony zoned in and out, head lolling from one side to the other. At one point he caught the glimpse of a starry sky, then he was put in the back of what looked like another van.

The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness for good was a masked man in something looking like SHIELD gear, all in black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to announce that this chapter closes part one of my story! There will be at least four parts to this fic, not necessarily all of the same length.
> 
> Thank you very much for your comments, they really make me happy and motivate me to write this story.  
> The more I get, the more I write ;)
> 
> I will try to update more frequently, I'd like to get to a rhythm to one chapter a week.
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments if you liked it or have questions!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I said I'd be posting more often, I wasn't intending to wait a month. whoops.  
> I'll do better next time, I hope...
> 
> WARNING: non consensual body modification. Go to the end notes to see a more detailed explanation.

Tony woke up slowly, coming back to consciousness gradually. He was…comfortable. There was a hazy sort of feeling enveloping his body, keeping him from sensing any pain at all. There was a slight twinge in his leg, but that was about it.

He couldn’t remember when he had not been in pain for the last time.

It was just so nice. He was lying down on a bed, most likely, soft and warm around him. Tony sighed contentedly, furrowing deeper under the blankets.

Maybe he would just stay in bed forever. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan. Not do anything, just relax and not feel any pain. Tony was actually feeling good and well-rested, for the first time since the Accords had been put on the table.

Tony refused to feel bitter about that. He let himself enjoy the warmth and fuzzy feelings, mind wandering lazily.

He was fine, could finally enjoy some rest.

Or wait, coffee actually sounded heavenly. He could make himself a nice espresso, then tinker a bit with his suit, eat with Rhodey, catch up with Pepper. A nice and quiet day. God, he really needed more of those.

Okay. Time to fully wake up.

 

By the time he blinked his eyes open, he had noticed that he was not in his own bed. Nor in his room in the compound. Actually, he wasn’t in the compound at all, there were no rooms that were completely white, it reminded him too much of hospitals.

So that brought up the question: where was he? Had he somehow gotten injured and put in a hospital? But that was weird, he had his own medical bay at the compound, to avoid hospitals as much as possible.

But then again, he could hear the steady beeping of what was undoubtedly a heart-rate monitor, only reinforcing the assumption that he was in a hospital.

Tony needed to call a nurse _right_ _now_ to understand why the hell he was here.

And that was when he realised he _wasn’t_ in a hospital, because he couldn’t fucking move his hand. In fact, he couldn’t move at all. Even his head was restrained in what seemed like thick leather straps, tight enough to prevent him from moving, but somehow not cutting his blood circulation, as he hadn’t even noticed them before now. What the hell?

Why was he restrained?

He was missing something.

Tony couldn’t for the life of him remember how he got in the bed. When he tried to recall anything, he just came up with a blank. As far as he knew, the last thing he had been doing was getting coffee for Rhodey, but that was hardly something that got you strapped in a bed and hooked to machines, was it?

Tony took a deep breath, examining what he could of the surroundings more closely. He was alone in the room, the only sound of breathing being his own. The ceiling above him was as blindingly white as the walls around him, and seemed to be made out of light panels. He could see the machinery in the corner of his eye, but nothing else.

After wriggling a bit, Tony gave up trying to loosen the straps or getting free. Obviously, he wouldn’t be getting out of there of his own volition. There were several tubes connected to his arms and his left leg, likely IV drips. If he had to guess, they were giving him nutrition and the drugs that had him feeling so nice. His right hand was in splint, and his left leg was… Well, it was weird. It felt like there was something wrong with the leg, but he couldn’t fathom _what_. It seemed…lighter somehow. And it was bandaged as well, the only place on his body with bandages.

He was missing something.

What was he missing?

Tony was losing all his previous calm. His subconscious was screaming something to him, trying to make him understand, acknowledge what was so obviously _wrong_ , but Tony didn’t know _what_ was. His body was just fine, from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes, and—

_Why the fuck couldn’t he feel the toes in his left leg._

Actually, he couldn’t feel _anything_ past his upper thigh.

_What the fuck? What the FUCK?_

Had they put an anaesthetic or something in his leg? Was his leg injured? Why couldn’t he feel anything at all?

He needed to see.

He needed to see his leg, understand what was wrong, what he had been missing.

He needed to see it _right now_.

Tony desperately arched his body, twisting his neck, trying to see past his chest, trying to feel his left leg with his hands, his other leg, _anything_ , but he wasn’t succeeding, and he needed to know, he couldn’t—

His breath was leaving him in short gasps, dangerously close to hyperventilating, and Tony felt the panic rising, his mind screaming at him to understand, to _see—_

Distantly, he heard the machinery beeping in alarm, recording his elevated heartbeat, brain-activity rising, and stress-levels spiking, but he couldn’t care less about what might happen, his whole being focused on seeing his leg. It was crucial, vital, but the straps fucking stopped him from doing that, and he was whining low in his throat, vision becoming spotty before he was engulfed by darkness.

.

.

.

 

The next time Tony woke up, he wasn’t alone. The faint shuffling around him and the quiet talking told him that there were at least three other persons with him.

Tony knew he had been awake at least once before this, but his memories were blurred and jumbled. He breathed in and out, trying to remember. So, he was still strapped to the bed, and there was something else, something that had made him panic, something that still sent a jolt of fear through him, but what was it?

Maybe the others would tell him.

Well, time to get the show going. Tony opened his eyes, blinking a few times, and tried to gather his wits. A woman in a nurse uniform leaned over him, then shone a light into his eyes. Satisfied with the reactivity of his pupils, she turned to the others, saying:

“Il est éveillé et complètement conscient. Appelez V.”

Well, it was a good thing Tony knew French. And who the hell was V?

He opened his mouth to ask just that when the memories slammed into him.

_His leg!_

“My leg, my fucking leg I need to see it now— _je veux voir ma jambe_!”

His voice was hoarse and scratchy from disuse, but his demand was loud enough to be heard by the nearest nurse, who startled and stared back at him.

Before he could talk again, he heard the sound of a door opening, and footsteps approaching him. Tony squashed the urge to scream at them too, knowing he needed to get more information about his situation before flipping out on them. He couldn’t stop his harsh breathing, though. And when the newcomer had said their piece, he was going to see his fucking leg. He _still_ couldn’t feel it.

A new figure loomed over him, dressed in a crisp dark brown suit, not a single wrinkle in sight. It was a man, but other than the sharp jaw and thin lips, Tony couldn’t discern the man’s features. He had a golden mask covering the upper half of his face. The mask was beautifully crafted, with wing-like protrusions on either side of the eyes. It made the man look like he was some kind of mystical creature, or just back from the carnival. All in all, he toed the line between mysteriously dangerous and comically ridiculous.

When the man smiled, Tony mentally shifted him into the mysteriously dangerous category. His white teeth were gleaming just a little too much, and his canines almost seemed longer than average. Tony had a crazy thought of “ _Is that a vampire?”_ before he focused on what the man was saying in a low, languid voice.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark. We have a lot planned for you. You will excuse me not giving you my name, I hope. You may call me V, or maître.”

_Wow. Creepy as hell._

“Now, you must be wondering where you are, and who we are. I trust your genius will be able to guess approximately were you are, listening to your surroundings. As for who we are, you will know when you’re ready.”

_Ready for what?_

The man had a French accent, which was consistent with the nurse speaking to him earlier, but worrying. Was Tony still in America? And if not, how long exactly had he been out?

As if reading his mind, the man turned the corners of his mouth down, and continued:

“I’m afraid we have some bad news for you, though. When we recovered you, you were in a very bad shape,” his lips pursed at those words, in annoyance at someone, but who? Damn memories that wouldn’t come! “because _some_ people couldn’t keep you healthy.”

A nurse handed the man, now dubbed Monsieur Masque by Tony, a sheet, which he started reading out loud.

“Severely infected bullet wound, three clean fractures in the hand, multiple concussions, stab wounds, internal bleeding, fractured liver, bruised spleen and kidneys, two broken ribs, malnutrition and dehydration, lack of vitamins C, D, B and A, the list goes on. But as you see, you are mostly healed, and almost as good as new, because, luckily, we have some of the best doctors this line of work can offer, and they worked miracles on you. They had to put you in a medically induced coma for two months after the surgeries to help you heal, but that is just a minor inconvenience.”

_Two months?_

_TWO fucking MONTHS? And those injuries, how the fuck did I get them? It sounds as if I’ve been kept prisoner somewhere else before getting here—why did he say_ almost _as good as new? Is there going to be any permanent damage? Oh god, I hope my hands are okay, I need them—_

Tony’s internal rambling was cut short when a nurse approached at the end of the bed with a mirror in hand. The covers had been removed and Tony could see himself, dressed in nothing but a light blue hospital gown, skin pale but looking healthy.

Apart from the fact that he was _missing his fucking leg_.

Where his left leg should have been, there was only a lump ending around half of his thigh.

Tony choked on his breath and stilled, eyes wide and fixed on the spot where his leg should have been.

Monsieur Masque just continued with his speech, not even acknowledging the mirror.

“Sadly, your leg could not be saved. The amputation was performed expertly, however, so we will not need to cut away more than what we already did. Do not worry, you will be perfectly useful even with only one leg.”

Tony still wasn’t breathing, his blood roaring in his ears, his vision whiting out.

“I will leave you to heal, then. I’ll be back when you’re ready.”

And with that, the man was gone again. Not that Tony cared a lot, at the moment. The only words inside his head were along the line of _they_ _took my leg they took my leg_ _they_ _took my leg they took my leg took my leg my leg my leg—_

Yeah, he had been missing something alright.

It was hard to comprehend, really. Objectively, Tony knew that he had lost the leg. But he couldn’t _understand_ it. It shouldn’t be possible, it was his leg, part of his body. You don’t just wake up with only one leg.  

Tony was half convinced he was still unconscious, that this was all a bad dream. After all, it sounded more logical than him missing a leg, right?

It wasn’t, it couldn’t, be real. There was no way. Tony Stark wasn’t an amputee.

_Error. Does not compute._

Tony’s breathing had picked up again, and he might be slipping into an anxiety attack, but surely he would wake up and all of this would be over and—

A prick in his arm, and he was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony had been missing for longer than when in Afghanistan. Somehow, it made everything more real, more desperate.

Now she wasn’t the worried PA, she was the anxious CEO and ex-girlfriend.

And there had been no clues. It was even worse than Afghanistan, because at least there they had known approximately where Tony was. Now, however, he could be anywhere.

Pepper wanted to cry. She wanted to drop all her responsibilities and join Rhodey in his search around the world for their friend. She wanted to do _something_ , but she couldn’t.

She had to run the company, assuring the board members that now wasn’t the time to abandon ship, that there was still hope. She had to keep the public happy, to show the world that they were doing everything in their power to find Tony. She had to negotiate with the UN about SI funding the various super-hero response teams that were forming themselves. She had to keep an eye on Peter Parker, make sure he wasn’t endangering himself too much, by sending Happy to help the kid in Tony’s absence.

Sometimes, it was too much. Those times, she excused herself graciously from whatever meeting she had been in, locked herself in the bathrooms, and sobbed for five minutes.

Rhodey had surprised her doing that, once, but he had just sat down on the floor next to her and cried with her. They never mentioned it.

She had been to the compound a few times but had never stayed long. It was eerily silent, with Rhodey absent most of the time and FRIDAY seemingly muted. The AI was still scouring all available data to find her creator, but Tony’s absence had it her hard. Just like JARVIS in 2008, she blamed herself for not being better at tracking him, and kept silent, reverting to robotic voices when someone asked her help. She sounded just like Siri, and it broke Pepper’s heart to see the lively and intelligent AI shutting herself off.

The bots had done the same thing, turning themselves off. Tony would have to turn them back on, if— _when_ he came back.

Not one of the teams looking for Tony had gotten relevant information, and Pepper knew that higher-ups in the government were desperate in getting any kind of results, some even whispering of pardoning the Exvengers if they helped in the search.

Tony was the face of the Accords-sanctioned superheroes, and he was also a symbol of peace and hope for many in the world. During his years as Iron Man, he had made sure to always help as many as he could, whether it be as Iron Man or through funds and technology. To have such a public figure as himself disappear made the general public uneasy: who would lead the superheroes against the next international (or otherworldly) threat? Who would protect them?

The pardons were already drafted, and Pepper knew that it was only a matter of time before the Exvengers would be on American soil again. As much as she hated it, she couldn’t change it, because she had never involved herself in politics before and couldn’t start now. Rhodey had tried to halt the process, but him being crippled was not helping, even if he was walking with the braces.  

The world wasn’t feeling safe anymore, and if Tony didn’t come back soon, the rest of the former Avengers would have to do.

Tony _had_ to come back.

The fact that he had come back once already from such a situation didn’t help. It was so much worse this time, because they didn’t know if Tony would have the motivation to break out once again. He had been so tired, so _defeated_ after the Avengers break-up. She remembered the perpetual bags under his eyes, the guilt in those eyes, and the grief that had seemed to engulf him.

Was there still fight left in Tony?

Was Tony even still ali—

She couldn’t finish the thought.

Pepper hoped, with all her being, that Tony was on his way to break out of whatever hole he was being kept in. Every day, she hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets his left leg amputated while he is unconscious. Obviously, he was not informed previously and could not give his consent.
> 
>  
> 
> [what the mask looks like](https://www.etsy.com/listing/483632453/gold-leather-mask-roman-god-costume)
> 
> Translations:  
> “Il est éveillé et complètement conscient. Appelez V.” : He's awake and fully conscious, call V.  
> "je veux voir ma jambe!”: I want to see my leg!
> 
> Scream at me if you want. Also, can you guess where Tony is now?
> 
> Please leave comments, I love to read what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am, back with a new chapter, nearly a month later..... I had a hard time writing this chapter.  
> To make up for the wait, have a 7k chapter, twice as long as usual!
> 
> Warning for this chapter: there is some psychological torture. If you aren't comfortable with that, I suggest you don't read this. Send me a comment if you need clarifications about this! :)

Tony was getting really tired of waking up in unfamiliar places with no memory of how he got there.

_All right, let’s get the show started._

His attempt at sitting up was not successful, because he was strapped to the bed (?) he was lying in. Ok, he could live with that. He still could see, smell and hear most of the room he was in. It looked like a hospital room, and he was alone. The ceiling was as white as the walls, and…

_This isn’t the first time I wake up here._

Tony knew, deep down, that he had already woken up in this place. But why couldn’t he remember it? Did whoever had taken him give him drugs? Or was he suffering from memory loss?

Fuck, _where was he_?

There was something else, too, something crucial, that he was forgetting.

It was just within his grasp, fleeting somewhere in the corners of his mind, waiting to be discovered. If he could only reach a little bit and _grasp_ it…

Tony didn’t know how long it took, but suddenly, he remembered. It was there, a single crushing thought: his leg was gone.

Forever.

Funny how your life could get turned upside down with a single sentence.

It was hard to breathe, to stay calm, when all he wanted to do was to scream and cry, rage over his missing limb. He wanted to do all that, but he was also paralysed in his bed, weighed down by his reality.

Tony would never be able to walk or run as he did before. God, would he still be able to fly in the suit?

The worst part was that there was nothing he would be able to do now. He couldn’t engineer his way out of this. Of course, he could try to build a prosthetic, but it wouldn’t ever be as good as the original. Hell, the only prosthetic in his knowledge that was even _close_ to the real thing was Barnes’ arm.

_Oh god. You know it’s really bad when I start thinking about_ that _guy._

Of course, now that he had started on this train of thought, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man. Several months after Siberia, he was still a touchy subject. Tony knew, logically, that Barnes wasn’t responsible for his actions as the Winter Soldier, but in his heart, he still couldn’t forgive the man for killing his parents. It didn’t help either that Rogers had known and not told him. Everything was just so messed up, his emotions tangled in each other, and he didn’t know how he felt anymore.

Rhodey had once asked Tony if he was still angry, and Tony had only scoffed in response. Any anger he had had towards Barnes had dwindled to nothing in less than an hour when he was lying alone and broken in the cold bunker. Left was only grief, despair, and a deep hurt that he suspected would never really disappear. Tony didn’t even know if he was still angry at Rogers, or just heartbroken.

Ugh. He didn’t want to think about it.

Back to the present. As he had said, the only prosthetic that had been halfway decent had been the arm, but Tony had disintegrated it in Siberia. He couldn’t say he was sorry, though. That arm had squeezed his mother’s neck until her last breath left her. Tony had needed the arm gone, so he had destroyed it. Also, in his defence, if he hadn’t done it, Barnes would have pried open his arc reactor, and that was just a recipe for disaster.

_The point was_ , he missed his leg.

Luckily for Tony, his musings were interrupted when three men walked in his room. One of the men was wearing a mask. Monsieur Masque, his brain supplied. Okay, so he had seen that man before. Was he in charge of this place?

“I see you’ve slept off the sedatives. Wonderful. We couldn’t have you panic on us, you see. But I see you’ve accepted your new state of being, hmm? Since you are more level-headed now, we can start to make you ready.”

Tony opened his mouth, wanted to say something, but he only managed a weak cough. What did he mean with making him ready? Ready for what?

One man approached his IV bag, injecting it with a translucid liquid. The mystery liquid mixed with the content of the bag, and slowly started dripping down to Tony’s veins. The genius couldn’t take his eyes away from the slow drops, dreading the moment the liquid would enter his body. What was it? Would it make him forget again? Would it hurt him? Was it a kind of truth serum? Something to knock him out?

The lights turned off.

Tony blinked in shock, only now realising that the men had gone away, leaving him alone in the dark. He couldn’t even see the light from the monitors, meaning they must have covered them with something.

He couldn’t see a thing, the pitch black enveloping him. The only thing he could hear was his breathing and the steady drip of the IV.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

_Oh god._

This was definitely not helping him to calm down. In fact, he felt like he was just about to freak out.

Drip.

The liquid had to be in his system already. Was it just him or was it getting warmer in here? Or no, colder, actually. Was there a problem with the heating? Had they turned it off along with the lights? How long would he lie there, alone?

He was hot. So hot.

It was like a blanket, warmth spreading through his body, suffocating him. Where was he?

Something was itching. His skin was prickling, he needed to get it off him, he needed to—

_Get what off? Oh god, what’s on me?_

It was crawling under his skin, trying to break free, making him shudder, writhe in his bonds. His fingers were scraping against the sheets, trying to get leverage, anything, and since when were the sheets so rough? They were coarse, almost as if grains of sand were strewn on them, and now the sand was piling up, he could feel it running down his arms, his face—

 

 

Sand. Everywhere he turned his eyes, the same sight met him. Sand dunes, underneath an unforgiving sun. He had been walking for hours now, not knowing where to go, just knowing he needed to get out of there, out of the caves, as far as possible.  Although, there was a fair possibility he had been walking in circles, what with the wind erasing any trace of the path he’d taken. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he kept going, because if he stopped he knew he would not get up again.

Step after step.

Time was stretching and contracting, flowing around. He didn’t know how long he’d been doing this, one step at a time.

What was the point, really? There was no way he was going to survive this, no way he would find shelter before the icy night would sweep over the desert. Maybe he should just give up now and let the sun kill him. Better that than to be reminded of the chill in the caves.

He was on his knees, then on all fours, then face down in the sand, too weak to support himself. He rolled over and stared unseeingly up at the oh so blue sky, feeling the sand shifting underneath and around him, the wind making tiny grains hit his body, starting to accumulate sand in every crevice of his body.

_It’s peaceful_ , he thought, _the sand and I will be one. In a few minutes, the dune will have swallowed me._

Tony closed his eyes.

—Tony startled awake with a gasp, eyes staring right in front him but not seeing anything. For one moment, he was overcome with blind panic, _oh my god I’m blind what did they do to me_ before he realised he was in the same room, still strapped to the bed.

What was happening to him? Was he having dreams? Hallucinations? How long had he been lying there already? And why was the bed shaking?

Oh.

Tony was trembling. It couldn’t be from the cold, because he was feeling warm all over, the sheets sticking against his skin from the sweat.

It had to be whatever drugs they had pumped him with.

Okay. Okay. So clearly the drugs were not meant to make him hurt, or spill his guts or whatever, but were messing with his mind instead.

Why, though?

What did they want from him? What could they possibly gain from this? Why—

 

 

Why hadn’t he told him? Why did he need to keep it a secret, just to have it explode in their faces in the worst possible way? Steve wasn’t even looking ashamed, he was just staring at Tony, almost daring him to react. _What are you gonna do about it, huh?_

It turned out, Tony would lash out. Badly. One moment, he was watching Steve, crushed by the “yes”, the other, he was staring at the lifeless body on the floor, horrified by his own action. He hadn’t even thought when he fired the repulsor, and at such a small distance, the shot had been lethal. Oh god, had he just…Was Cap…—

 

Barnes was pinning him to the wall with all his weight, trying to pry out the arc reactor from the suit with his metal arm, and Tony couldn’t think anything apart from _He’s going to kill me just like he killed my parents oh god not the reactor I need it to survive I need to live I need to neutralize the threat,_ and he fired his unibeam, choking out a breath as the weight finally, finally left him.

The hoarse cry from somewhere on the floor had him turn his head to Cap, who was staring in horror at Tony’s feet, and as he glanced down the headless body of Barnes was slumped on the ground, burn marks preventing any blood from flowing—

 

Tony was on the ground, his helmet wrenched away by Rogers, said man straddling his armour, rising his shield high above his head, fear and determination in his gaze, and he knew it was his last moment. The shield went down, dodging his outstretched hands, and sliced his neck—

“Stand down. Final warning.”

But Cap wasn’t standing down, he was too stubborn to accept defeat, just kept pushing back and getting up again, gritting out that he could do it all day. But Tony couldn’t do it. He couldn’t carry on fighting. He was exhausted, and nearly out of his mind with grief, and someone he thought had been his friend was ready to beat him to the ground to protect a murderer.

Tony was so focused on Rogers that the slight movement at his feet caught him off guard, triggering his panic protocol and propelling him off the ground, where he crashed through the ceiling. When he came to again, he was lying in the middle of rubble, a pale and bloody hand jutting out from under a boulder next to him—

 

 

This time, Tony was crying. And not the silent crying, but ugly, wracking sobs that tore through his body, making him gasp. He wasn’t thinking straight, he knew that, but the didn’t know if this was him waking up or dreaming. How could he tell? Everything felt so _real_ , he couldn’t—didn’t know the difference anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, he was somewhere else, dying or killing or withering away.

 

Sometimes he screamed himself hoarse, terrified by what he was seeing. Other times he cried until his eyes dried out. More rarely, he would laugh until his breath died away.

There was no way to know for how long he lied on his own in the dark room. His internal clock wasn’t reliable anymore, jumping through time and dilating it, every second passing slow as a century, but simultaneously faster than the expanding of a Singularity.

 

Tony woke up several times without knowing where he was or how he had gotten there, losing his memories seemingly at random. However, after the sixth time, he realised the memory losses were always preceded with deep, dreamless episodes of sleep. He quickly suspected that every time the drugs wore off, he was put to sleep to replenish the IV bag, as it never seemed to run out.

It weirdly comforted him, that he was not completely alone, but that other human beings came and went in his room, keeping him in his hallucination-addled state. Even if he was unconscious when they were there with him, at least they hadn’t abandoned him.

It was his worst fear. That one day, they would stop coming, stop feeding him hallucinogens, just let him starve to death. It kept him awake between dreams, filled him with dread. If they did that, he wouldn’t even know that they had left him, at first. He would just notice when his body would start dehydrating and shrivelling in on itself. Or maybe he would never notice, too out of if to realise he was dying. Maybe he would think it was just another hallucination.

Maybe he was already dead, and this was hell.

_It would be fitting, at least. Me slowly losing my mind about all the possible ways various events in my life could have played out._

Lying in the dark and silence, it became hard for Tony to differentiate when he was thinking and when he was speaking out loud. In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. He knew full well that extended isolation was never good for someone with a mind like his. So what if he was muttering to himself? No one was there to hear him anyway.

Or maybe there was. Maybe they were watching him and listening to him via cameras and microphones. How would he know? He hadn’t been able to see the whole room when it had been lit, and now he couldn’t see _any_ part of it. He hoped it was boring to watch him, that they didn’t get anything out of his half-crazed ramblings.

 

 

* * *

 

 

”Maître?”

“Qu’y a-t-il, sœur Marie ?”

”Les 384 heures se sont écoulées.”

”Excellent.” 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Tony didn’t notice something was different until he realised he had been staring at the IV bag for way too long. The IV bag that he could _see_.

There was light again. He wasn’t in the dark anymore!

Tony blinked slowly, trying to process the new development, utterly unsure as to what it meant that the lights were on again. Or was he dreaming? That seemed more realistic.

He had to be making this up.

Tony was sure he was making this up.

When the door opened, he didn’t bother trying to talk, just waiting for whatever hallucination he was having to stop. It wasn’t like this was the first time it happened, this hallucination was quite common, in fact. They would enter, ignore him for some time, and then leave again. He had tried everything during the time he had been stuck in his haze, but his subconscious was stubbornly refusing to change the hallucination.

Which was why Tony choked on his own breath when one of the nurses took a lamp and shone it directly in his eyes. _What is she doing?,_ he thought, rattled that this dream was not like the others. The nurse took his pulse while others removed the IV from his arm and unhooked him from the various machines, rolling them out of the room.

What was happening?

… _Was_ he really making this up?

The nurse instructed him to follow his finger with his eyes, which Tony did. When the test was finished, the man wrote something down on his notepad and left.

Tony was alone again, but the lights were still on.

He couldn’t be hallucinating this, could he? It didn’t make any sense for him to be making this up.

_Then again, it’s not like hallucinations are supposed to make sense, Tony. Maybe you’ve just reached the next level of crazy._

An indefinite amount of time later, the door opened again, and three people entered. Two of them were your typical goons: clad in black tactical gear with heavy leather boots and gun holsters strapped to their thighs, they were holding assault rifles and looking straight ahead. Flanked by them, a short but lean woman in a lab coat was carrying a leather suitcase. She had her blond hair in a ponytail and wore elegant glasses.

The men stopped a few steps from the bed, raising their weapons and pointing them at Tony. The message was clear: don’t try anything. Well, Tony was still half-convinced he was dreaming, so he wasn’t about to test his luck.

The woman walked up to him and leaned over him, smiling slightly.

“Good day, mister Stark. Let’s start.”

Her voice was almost melodious, sweet and smooth. Tony wondered who she was. Was she a doctor? Another figure of importance? He supposed he would know it soon anyway. Then she started undoing the straps, and _that_ was interesting. Okay, Tony was definitely not making this up. God, he was actually going to leave this bed!

When she was done, she stepped back, letting him sit up and take in the room. Now that he could see its integrity, he was almost disappointed to note that the room was bare apart from the bed, a drain in the centre of the floor, a metal hoop protruding around a metre from the drain. The door was made from white-painted reinforced metal, and there was a ventilation shaft above it. The shaft was inaccessible, a steel grid blocking the way. They were probably underground, then. Everything was so blindingly _white_. After god knows how long spending in absolute darkness, it was almost painful to take in.

After he had gotten a good look at the room and its inhabitants, he looked down at himself and the sight he had been avoiding until now. He looked just like he thought he would look, albeit a bit paler than he would have liked. And under the bed sheets, he could see the outline of the lump his left leg had become. A shame his leg hadn’t grown back. Well, at least it didn’t hurt.

There was nothing to do but to confront the captors, then. He steeled himself and tried to gather all his authority:

“Where am I? Who are you? Why am I here?”

The guards didn’t even react to his questions, just stared right through him, but the woman looked at him and smiled slightly.

“You’ll know when you’re ready.”

And what was it with those guys and telling him he would know when he was ready? Ready for _what_? Was it too much to ask? Tony felt like a child who’s been told he would understand when he’s older. He wanted to know it now, dammit!

“Ready for what, exactly? Is it too much to ask for some details? What do you even _want_ with me?”

Tony could feel himself getting angrier, with good reason. Now that the drugs were out of his system, he could recall more of his weeks prior to waking up in this place, and the picture wasn’t promising. First of all, it seemed like he had switched from one group of kidnappers to another. Second of all, this group seemed more organised and professional than the first one, which was really not helping in terms of chances of escaping the place. Thirdly, there was the tiny matter of his leg. That wasn’t there anymore. Which meant he couldn’t even walk of his own volition, and how was he supposed to make a daring escape and blow up the place if he was stuck in his bed? But maybe worst of all was the fact that this group had put so much effort to make sure he was in good health. He was well-nourished, his hand was as good as new, all his cuts and injuries had been expertly tended to, and he was really grateful for that, because if they hadn’t done that he would most certainly be dead in a cell somewhere with his first kidnappers. But the problem was: why did this group want him in good health? If they only wanted information from him, they could have ignored the injuries that weren’t life-threatening. Seeing as nothing short of torture would get them anything from him, it was weird that they would make the effort of healing him only to injure him again later on. Or maybe they were the kind of evil kidnappers that didn’t believe in torture? Maybe they were some group that specialised in helping people in need?

_Yeah, keep delusioning yourself, Tony. People who have your best interests in mind don’t tend to strap you to a bed or keep you at gun point._

He had a point, if he so said it himself. Besides, it wasn’t as if physical torture was the only kind of torture there was. They could also need his body in good health to have him work on something, or even to have him as a testing subject. Now that he thought of it, there were millions of things that these people could want. And judging by their mysterious talk of being ready, he wouldn’t even be surprised if they tried to initiate him to their cult or sect or whatever.

But it was seriously pissing him off, that they wouldn’t even say what they had in mind for him. He didn’t want to be kept in ignorance, because he would just come up with the most horrible scenarios. Not knowing was worse than anything.

Of course, the woman didn’t answer, her smile firmly in place. It was almost as if she was humouring him, letting him have his little tantrum and smiling indulgently.

_Fuck you, lady._

He could start making a scene, but he didn’t feel like it. The long nights spent hallucinating had upset him, and he was freely admitting to himself that he was offquilter, not quite in his right mind. So he stayed quiet when no one spoke, and waited.

The woman backed a few steps, then looked expectantly at Tony.

“Stand up.”

Okay, he could do that, he was getting tired of being in this bed anyway. It was a bit tricky to keep his balance with only one foot, but he managed, bracing one hand on the bed for support, trying to get the feel of standing on one leg.

“Good. Now, kneel.”

Oh.

_Ohhhh no. No fucking way. No ma’am, not today, not ever._

“I’d rather not,” he bit out.

The woman looked almost bored at that, but didn’t say anything else, obviously waiting for him to comply. Which he wasn’t going to do. Because he wasn’t just going to kneel as if he was in some fucked-up BDSM play. She could ask him to kneel all she wanted to, but he was going to stay right there, thank you very much.

As he didn’t move from his spot her eyes went past him, towards the guards, and she nodded once. Tony tensed up, bracing himself for the next course of action, but the guards only moved around the bed to stand behind the woman, weapons still trained on Tony.

“Kneel.”

Her voice was completely devoid of emotion, as if she was asking him to pass him the salt instead of dropping to his knees—to his _knee_. And how would that even work out? Was it even possible to kneel on one leg? The balance would be completely off, he thought. Tony was half convinced he would just face-plant on the ground if he tried kneeling. Which was just another reason for him not to comply, if you asked him.

He decided to start mouthing off, see if he could annoy her enough to make her forget her orders.

“I don’t think so, doctor Quinn. I’m just fine where I am, you see, I don’t need you to start an impersonation of our least favourite crazy Asgardian god, what with demanding people to kneel and all that. What do you say? Or maybe one of your buddies behind you can do that, huh? I bet they would be happy to kneel for you, right boys?”

Deafening silence.

Okay, so they were definitely unfazed by anything he said. And that was just making him angrier. Why couldn’t they act like a normal bad guy and grow mad at him? He was good at pissing people off, they were supposed to throw insults or punches at him by now!

The woman just repeated herself, this time with a note of finality, a slight warning in her voice:

“Kneel.”

Well, he wasn’t going to change his mind, too bad for her.

When another minute passed without any of them moved, she sighed and bent down to open her suitcase on the floor, revealing its innards. Tony could make out what looked like handcuffs, controllers and other electrical devices, all in gleaming metal. Torture devices, most probably. He refused to tense up, but swallowed nonetheless, trying to guess what was going to happen now.

“Failure to comply will result in punishment. Guards, make him kneel.”

At her signal, both guards approached Tony, one of them burying the muzzle of his rifle in Tony’s spine, the other putting a heavy hand on his shoulder. Despite his best efforts, he wasn’t a match for them, and found himself dragged to the hoop, then pushed face down to the floor. They grabbed both his hands, forcing them behind his back and into cuffs. He heard a metallic rattle and click somewhere behind him, realising they had chained him to the hoop on the floor. He tugged on his bonds, dismayed to feel that there was almost no give at all.

Ok. So they were really adamant about getting him to kneel. Fine. But now that he was chained to the ground, he could also just lie there, just to be contrary. They couldn’t force him to kneel, could they?

 

It turned out they could. Easy as anything, really. Just add some electrocution into the mix, and he would do exactly what they wanted.

It was so simple. His cuffs could electrocute him, which they would do if he wasn’t kneeling. If any part of his body other than his shin and foot touched the floor, the cuffs would turn on, as the woman oh so helpfully told him. He got a small taste of that as he failed to comply fast enough.

Not pleasant.

Tony was thus kneeling, balancing awkwardly on his one leg, trying not to let the stump touch the floor. He didn’t know anything about amputated limbs. Was it safe already to put weight on it? Would it be dangerous, would he get infections, could the wound open again?

Damn, his knee was already hurting from being on the hard and cold floor.

The woman eyed him, satisfied, and turned around with the guards in tow. They left the room, not deigning to respond to Tony as he shouted at them to come back.

 

He was alone again.

 

At least this time the lights were on, he tried to reassure himself. But how long would they make him kneel? Or were they just putting him in the desired position for someone else? Was the boss or something going to come in now to gloat? Why was he kneeling, if there was no one around? Usually, villains made you kneel to humiliate you, show you that you were in the position of submission, of helplessness. Not that Tony wasn’t feeling humiliated, because he very much _was_ , but usually someone would be present to rub the salt in the wound.

He was thinking in circles.

Tony tried to be optimistic: at least they were not hurting him or debasing him further. He just needed to hold on until they let him up again. If they ever let him up again. What was stopping them from keeping him in this position for weeks on end? They hadn’t had any problem with leaving him drugged for god knows how many days.

Tony hoped he would at least get food or something.

That floor was _very_ hard. And freezing. And just a tad too smooth to have a good grip with his foot.

Tony tried to adjust himself to take a bit of the weight off his knee, but he realised his mistake when his foot slipped, making him crash to the ground.

The surge of electricity was almost unexpected in its violence. His body arched painfully, rigid from the current coursing through him. He was screaming, he noted distantly, screaming from the white-hot fire roaring inside him and eating him from the inside.

Tony didn’t know how long he lied there, unable to escape the electricity, but just as suddenly as it had started, it died out. For a minute, he couldn’t do anything other than breathe, body convulsing periodically and tears leaking out from his eyes. Approximately two minutes after the first pulse, his cuffs lit up again, sending a small current through his arms. Not enough to hurt him but sending a very clear warning.

God, he needed to get up before the cuffs electrocuted him again.

As expected, it was not easy. He rolled up on his elbows to get his knee under him, then pushed up as much as he could, until he was half-sitting on his leg. The tricky part was moving from that position to kneeling properly, because if he rocked up with too much force, he would just tip over, and Tony didn’t have the time to start the whole process again.

Another warning pulse, stronger this time, had him surging up hastily. He balanced between falling to the left or collapsing on himself for several seconds, but he finally regained his balance and was kneeling again, breathing hard.

His body still trembled occasionally, but after ten minutes or so, the aftereffects were over. Well, he was sweating a lot, but that was probably the stress. And fear.

Tony wasn’t feeling better, though. Even if his body had recovered somewhat, it had only made him more afraid. He understood what was happening now. He wasn’t kneeling for anybody, he was just kneeling for the sake of it. He was kneeling because he had been _ordered_ to kneel. But he had disobeyed, and was now being punished. There weren’t a million possibilities as to how this would end. They would either come in when they deemed he had been punished for long enough, or they would let him kneel until he couldn’t anymore, and the electric shocks had knocked him out.

Tony had the feeling it would be the latter.

And it was so frustrating, because he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. He could just hope he was wrong.

Tony tried to find the least uncomfortable position, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The pain was slowly getting worse, the floor digging into his knee. He could feel the bruises forming on his knee and shin, but he didn’t dare move, because he had started losing feeling in his leg. If he moved even just a little bit, it would be excruciating.

His back was hurting.

His knee was hurting.

His foot was hurting.

Well, you get the point.

 

 

 

The next hours consisted of Tony trying to stay kneeling, but failing regularly, each time getting electrocuted when he fell. With every new pulse of electricity, it was harder to get up again. His body was wrecked with spams that came more and more frequently as time went on. He had a terrible headache, and his vision was swimming. He had trouble breathing as well, but didn’t know if that was due to his stress levels or his physical condition.

Tony’s leg had finally gone completely numb, and when a particularly strong spasm coursed through his body, he lost his balance for the seventh time that day.

After the first electrical shock, Tony dry-heaved, choking on his saliva, happy that he hadn’t gotten anything to eat or drink before this. He tried to get up again, but his limbs wouldn’t coordinate. The first warning pulse went through him, and his teeth chattered as he tried in vain to roll over so that he would be on his back. He couldn’t do more than tremble on the ground. The second warning pulse had his heartbeat skyrocket, but he only managed to get his leg under him before the next real electrical shock was upon him. He cried out, convulsing and writhing in pain.

When it was over, black spots were dancing across his vision and his breath was coming in short pants. He wasn’t getting enough air, he needed to breathe, but he couldn’t move, he was just flopping around like a fish out of the water.

Tony tried calling out, for whom he didn’t know, but he didn’t manage to articulate anything, only emitting a hoarse cry.

Fuck, he had reached his breaking point, he couldn’t get up anymore.

His hands were numb, his legs tingling, his chest heaving. His heartbeat was getting irregular, and wouldn’t it be ironic if he died of a fucking heart attack now?

His voice broke with the next shock. He completely lost control over his body, his breathing erratic and his frame shaking with muscle spasms. He was crying again, but his sobs were silent.

He was _helpless_.

Couldn’t defend himself, couldn’t talk, couldn’t even lift a finger.

The only thing he could do was wait for the next electrical shock.

It came soon enough, making him lose consciousness after one second.

 

He was brought back to consciousness with the next shock but passed out after it was over.

 

The next three shocks didn’t wake him.

 

 

When he woke up, he was strapped to the bed again, alone in the dark.

 

_Fucking hell._

Well, he had been right in guessing he would pass out before they deemed his punishment enough. His whole body was aching, his head throbbing and his wrists burning. He most certainly had burn marks all over his arms, what with the numerous shocks he had gotten. He hoped it wouldn’t leave any scars.

 

He really didn’t want a repeat of the last time he’d been in the dark. It was trippy enough, to wake up in the exact same position as he’d woken up the last dozen times, without re-enacting the whole beginning of his stay here, wherever _here_ was. 

Luckily for him—or maybe not, who knew at this point—the lights turned on after only two hours (or so his internal clock said, but could he truly trust his body?). The same expressionless woman walked in, flanked by two new guards. Joy.

This time, the guards unstrapped him at once, resuming their position behind the woman. Tony sat up, watching her warily. What was it going to be this time? Crawl? Make a handstand? 

 

“Kneel.”

 

Well, zero points for originality there, Loki-wannabe. 

 

Tony snarked back: 

“Come on, we did this last time already. Any chance you can let me sit on the bed instead? It’s much more comfy than the floor, you know?”

He couldn’t help it, he had to talk back, stall, because he really didn’t want to spend the day kneeling on the ground and getting electrocuted for being tired. 

 

Of course, he didn’t have a choice, did he? The guards were quick to secure his hands in the same cuffs as the day before (was it the day before? How long had he been out?), leaving him face down on the bed. He supposed he should be grateful they hadn’t thrown him to the ground.

 

At least he wasn’t chained to the hoop this time.

 

As eloquent as ever, the woman repeated herself:

“Kneel.”

Tony didn’t dare make her wait. Instead, he got up awkwardly and let himself make a controlled fall on his side, seeing as he wouldn’t be able to keep his balance to kneel from a standing position. He pushed himself into a kneeling position and looked back at her, face hot from the humiliation.

_Didn’t you say that you would never kneel for her? Look at you now, all eager to follow her commands_ , his mind sneered at him. He shot back that kneeling was better than playing the role of Luke when he went against the emperor’s order to kill Vader.

_Great, Stark, you’re talking to yourself now._

_Shut up._

The woman eyed him critically, then turned around and walked back out the door.

Tony was alone, _again_. Again, again, again.

 

Tony breathed in, out, and pushed himself up until he was standing. The shock wasn’t really unexpected, but it sent him twitching to the ground, nonetheless. Well, you couldn’t blame him for trying.

He pushed himself back to kneeling, trying to ignore the burning in his wrists and keeping his breathing controlled and even.

The rest of the day was spent in much the same manner as last day, ending with him passed out on the floor from the shocks.

 

Tony woke up, strapped to the bed, and screamed in frustration.

He felt like he was in a fucking time-loop, always waking up in the same _FUCKING_ bed.

Of course, the woman walked in not much later, ordered him to kneel, ordered the guards to cuff him when he didn’t move, and then walked out again, guards in tow.

Tony didn’t move from the bed. It took five consecutive shocks for his heart to give out.

 

Tony woke up. He was strapped to the bed again but hooked to a heart rate monitor.

_They want me alive, then._

Tony didn’t know if he should be happy about that.

 

He didn’t know how long he stayed in bed, but he guessed it must have been between two days and a week, long enough for his heart to recover, he supposed.

The woman walked in, ordered him to kneel, and made the guards chain him to the hoop when he didn’t react. Back to zero it was.

The next time, they didn’t chain him to the hoop, and he didn’t try to stand up.

After three sessions of him staying on the floor, they changed his cuffs. The first time he fell, the shock was much weaker, to his surprise. It was strong enough to make him lose consciousness at the end of the day, but it was still a welcome change.

When he asked the woman about it the next day, she responded— _she actually responded!!_ —to him:

“Failure to comply will result in punishment, but compliance will be rewarded.”

Tony felt sick at those words. Were they _rewarding_ him for being a good little prisoner? He almost resisted when the guards cuffed him, but realised that it was futile. He was at their mercy, not a chance of escaping in sight, which meant his goal was to survive. He had to comply to make his chance of survival optimal. It was simple self-preservation: follow the rules, stay in the system, so that you can use the system later on.

There was no place for pride or dignity here.

So Tony kneeled, and waited.

 

 

One day, he never lost consciousness, the shocks having stopped before he could pass out. He wasn’t in a state to get up from the floor, but he wasn’t getting electrocuted again. Tony supposed they were rewarding him for kneeling as long as he could.

He wanted to spit at the guards that dragged him back to the bed. He wanted to insult them, to say that he would never give in to whatever they were planning. But that wasn’t true, was it? He was already giving in, even if it was by necessity. So he stayed silent. Tony stayed silent, and cursed himself for it.

They sedated him and left him.

When he woke up, he was feeling almost rested, and hated that he was grateful to his jailors for it. He couldn’t start thinking like that, they were the ones that had put him in this situation.

But he just needed to listen to them to make his life more bearable.

_Compliance will be rewarded_ , a small part of his brain supplied. _Just comply, Tony._

 

Five times later, (they weren’t days, because the woman never kept the same schedule, sometimes visiting him several times in one day, other times ignoring him for days at an end), the cuffs didn’t shock him when he fell. He got up nevertheless, heart hammering in his chest, thanking deities he didn’t believe in for the fact that the cuffs hadn’t activated. He stayed kneeling until he passed out from exhaustion.

Tony realised two times later that the cuffs weren’t shocking him anymore because they didn’t need to enforce the order to kneel anymore. He had knelt even if there was no punishment.

_Compliance will be rewarded._

One day, the woman ordered him to kneel, and he went to his knee before the guards cuffed him. They walked out, and he knelt with his hands free for the first time since he had been imprisoned in this room. Tony occupied his time by watching the scars on his hands and remembering what had caused them. He looked at his wrists and was relieved to see there were only faint scars of the burns on his wrists. If he squinted, he couldn’t see anything amiss with his wrists.

When the guards came in again and pulled him to his foot, he was almost happy.

He had his hands again.

Four times later, they didn’t strap him to his bed when the session was over, and he almost thanked them for their kindness, only remembering at the last moment that they had only done that because he had been compliant. There was no kindness, only action and reaction.

Three times after that, when the woman entered the room, Tony knelt on the floor, watching her evenly. He had complied, they wouldn’t punish him.

The woman smiled at him then, a real smile, and he didn’t understand why.

He never realised he had knelt down before she had asked him to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> ”Maître?”: "Master?"  
> “Qu’y a-t-il, sœur Marie ?”: "What is it, sister/nurse Marie?"  
> ”Les 384 heures se sont écoulées.” : "The 384 hours have passed."  
> ”Excellent.”: "Excellent" (Guess you didn't need a translation for this one ;) )
> 
> Thank you again for your kudos and comments and please send me more! I love to hear your thoughts and speculations <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, this chapter was hard to write.
> 
> we're getting near the end of this part of the story, pals!
> 
> WARNING: there is non-consensual touching and threats of rape in this chapter. No actual rape will take place, not now nor in later chapters. I you don't want to read the part with the non-con touching, skip the paragraph between ***. I will give you a summary in the end notes.

As he knelt there, she tilted her head, still smiling, and said almost gently:

“Stand.”

He did.

When he was upright again, still uncuffed, she told him to kneel again.

 _This is pointless_ , a small part of his mind whispered. _Do as you’re told_ , a larger part responded.

He knelt, and she smiled wider, satisfaction shining in her eyes.

Tony felt as if he was missing something. It looked like he had passed a test of some sort, but what had the test been? He hadn’t done anything different today from the day before. Was she just happy that he had complied? That couldn’t be it, could it?

At least she was pleased by whatever he had done. That was good for him too. After all, compliance was rewarded, he reminded himself with a lot less sarcasm than he was comfortable with.

Was he already giving in?

Or had he done so the moment he first knelt for her?

Was he ready now?

Would he get to know why he was here?

 

The woman tapped her ear and murmured: ”On peut passer à la prochaine étape. Informe V et amène le bac.”

 

This V again. And what kind of “bac” was she talking about? A tub?  A trough?

He didn’t need to wait long. Two goons came stamping in, carrying a rather large, and by the looks of it, heavy tub between them. It was made of wood, the scent strong in the otherwise sterile room. The sloshing sound it made when they put it down pierced right through Tony’s chest.

_No. No. Please don’t be what I think it is._

Tony recoiled, trying to draw back when the woman stepped right next to the tub and looked expectantly at him, but he lost his balance and fell on his left side. He didn’t want to go near that tub. He wouldn’t. He _couldn’t_.

Scrabbling to get up, his breath hitched when he felt unyielding hands grab him by the arms and heave him up.

He couldn’t stand, suddenly having lost all strength in his body. He hung limp between the two goons, eyes fixed on the shimmering surface of the water in the tub, chest already heaving.

He had to stop this.

“I don’t—Why are you doing this? I didn’t—I didn’t do anything, I—I’ve been complying!”

_Pathetic. You sound just as pathetic as you are, Stark._

Blondie chuckled lightly, following Tony’s gaze to the water. As calm and impersonal as ever, she deigned to respond:

“I know, you’ve been good, but this is an essential step in making you ready. See it as a necessary evil. Now, don’t make it worse for yourself. Struggling won’t help.”

She could as well have talked to a wall. Tony jerked, truly panicking now, flailing with both arms and his leg, trying to throw himself to the side. However, despite his constant struggles, the guards were quick to cuff him with the heaviest pair of manacles they had, electrocuting him until he stilled. They dragged him to the tub, forcing him to kneel in front of the water, and Tony stared at his reflection.

A stranger stared back at him.

Eyes wide with fear, trembling lips, pale skin. His hair was longer than he used to have it, starting to curl. There was no trace of his goatee. _How the fuck didn’t I realise they shaved me?_ He didn’t look like himself. He had more wrinkles than he remembered, and the brown was almost completely gone from his hair. Dark grey strands mixed with silver ones, some even white. He looked nothing like Tony Stark.

A strong hand fisted in his hair, pulled him up until he was forced to look at the ceiling, and kept him there. His breathing hadn’t slowed down, and he was slowly reaching hyperventilation. He knew he needed to breathe deeply, but he was losing control of his respiration, thoughts spiralling back to what was waiting for him in the tub before him.

She was watching him, still smiling, with a clinical gaze. This was just another experiment for her: how would he react? How much time before he started pleading? Begging? Would he have a panic attack?

She was sick, was what she was.

 

Water flowed into his nostrils and stung his eyes as he was shoved under. It was ice-cold, almost painful against his skin. He held his breath as long as he could, trashing against the hold on his head, but he was growing light-headed already. He hadn’t gotten enough oxygen before they shoved him under water, he would soon need to breathe again, please let him breathe, he couldn’t die like that, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t brea—

He was pulled back with a gasp, freezing water running down his face in rivulets, soaking his hospital gown and making him shiver. He heaved one, two breaths, and was pushed into the water again.

 

He trashed more, sloshing water around, felt it splash against his knee, not caring one bit. He was too busy trying to breathe.

And failing.

This time, they waited just a little bit longer, letting him swallow water in one huge gulp before they pulled him back again. He tried to hunch over to cough it out, but they shoved him down again before he could clear his airway.

The water got in his nose, and his throat was burning, and he couldn’t breathe, and they wouldn’t let him get up, and they—

They were screaming at him, and he couldn’t understand a single fucking word of what they were saying, because he didn’t speak their fucking language—

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, the water was getting into his lungs—

He had to hold it, it couldn’t get wet, or he would just get electrocuted again, and it couldn’t short-cut, otherwise the only thing keeping him alive would be gone, and he didn’t want to die in this hell-hole—

 

He wouldn’t build it, he wouldn’t build it, he refused, they could drown him but he wouldn’t give them the fucking Jericho—

 

 

* * *

 

 

Stark was shivering on the ground, water seeping out from his blue lips, muttering to himself.

“I won’t build it, I refuse, I won’t build it, I won’t build it, I won’t build it—”

His gaze was blank, empty. He had been lying there for a good ten minutes, unresponsive, stuck in his flash-back.

 

 

Good.

 

* * *

 

 

 

When he came to, he was strapped to the bed again. They had taken off his hospital gown, leaving him in nothing but white boxers.

He didn’t remember them stopping with the waterboarding. Had he had a panic attack?

 

 

What did it matter anyway.

 

 

They came back some time later. The tub was brought in again, and Tony started hyperventilating when they unstrapped him. He passed out before they even started.

 

 

Tony woke up in the bed. He closed his eyes again and willed himself to sleep.

 

 

This time, they waterboarded him until he got too much water in his lungs and they were forced to reanimate him. He screamed himself hoarse when they dragged him back to the tub.

At one point he started pleading, begging them to just stop.

They never listened.

 

 

He became violent, trying to hit or bite his guards, and managed to kick one between the legs when they carried him away from the bed. He paid for that by getting electrocuted until he lost consciousness.

He lost track of how many times they came and dunked him in water, how many times he lost touch of reality, believing himself back in Afghanistan, how many times they had to reanimate him because he wasn’t breathing or his heart wasn’t beating anymore.

He just wanted it to end.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony was lying in his— _the_ bed again, strapped down as always. He watched as the blond woman checked his vitals, making sure that he wasn’t at risk of having yet another heart attack.

Everything was so pointless. They had asked him to kneel, he had done that. Now they were waterboarding him and he still. Didn’t. Know. Why. He. Was. FUCKING. There.

He hated this, he hated her, he hated the bed, he hated everything. If they would just tell him anything, just one single piece of information, to give his brain something to dissect, to analyse. He couldn’t think, he needed to get some stimulation or he would turn crazy. The constant isolation wasn’t helping either.

Tony watched as blondie finished her checks, satisfied with the result, and grabbed her coat when she made to walk away. She stopped, turning slowly to look at him.

Her face was as unreadable as ever.

Tony didn’t want to know what kind of punishment would be dealt out for him daring to touch her like that, but he needed to get answers. Any answer would do, just not the everlasting silence.

_Please_

“Can you… Can you pl—please tell me why you’re doing this? I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Are you just trying out every kind of torture on me as a sick form of entertainment? Why can’t you just—why does this never end? Why does everything hurt? Why…”

His voice faltered and died in a hoarse whisper. He swallowed heavily, not having the courage anymore to talk to the woman. She would answer or not, but he had tried. It was the best he could do.

“Oh, Stark.”

Her voice was like honey, her eyes piercing as she looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since he’d been imprisoned here.

“You don’t know a single thing about torture. You wouldn’t understand why we’re doing this. It’s for a purpose higher than you, higher than me, higher than all of us. But you aren’t ready yet, even if you come closer and closer every day. And the only way for you to become ready is for you to _break_. I won’t stop until there are only pieces left of you, and then we will mould you to fit a new beginning. There are many ways to break a man, and the ones we use on you are effective enough, but if you keep resisting the inevitable, we can always use other methods.”

She stepped away, breaking his grip on her coat, and walked the bed until she was level with his head, all the while keeping eye-contact with him.

He couldn’t look away.

 

***

 

She trailed a hand lightly on his cheek, in a parody of a caress, and Tony stifled a sob. It had been _so_ _long_ , so long since he had been touched by hands that weren’t there to harm him. He wanted to close his eyes and revel in the tiny amount of love that he was getting, cherish it and hold onto the memory during the next waterboarding session. But the touch was coming from his tormentor, and it was _wrong_. Wrong that he liked it, that he craved more.

Wrong that he was lying completely still, not even turning his head away from the hand that was trailing lower, along his neck and down to the centre of his chest, right on the scars where the arc reactor once sat.

“You could have it so much worse. I could decide I wanted you to lose yourself, lose what’s left of your integrity. I could decide I wanted something in return for all I do to prepare you.”

Her hand trailed down over his stomach and lower, light as ever, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Tony was unable to move or breathe at all. Her hand burned him and left him freezing where she touched him. His stomach was roiling, his hands sweating, numb horror seeping in his mind.

“I could decide to take you, to _own_ you.”

Two fingers dipped under the waistband of his boxers, teasing along the edge.

“I could let the guards over there have some fun, to reward them for always being so dutiful.”

She took hold of the waistband by his right hip, dragging it slowly down until his hipbone was bare.

Tony shuddered.

“And you wouldn’t be able to stop anything. You would just.”

Feather-light fingers skimmed across his inner thigh.

“Lie here.”

One single finger trailed up his crotch, the nail on the fabric digging just this side of too painful.

“And _take_ it.” She broke his skin just above the waistband, making him suck in a breath in a whimper.

She dragged her fingertip to his navel, leaving a bloody trail, then lifted it to his face. She brushed her finger across his bottom lip, and Tony shuddered again, more fiercely.

She was still watching him, her eyes never leaving his, and smiling a cold, cruel smile.

 

***

 

“Stop resisting, and it won’t have to come to that. Do you understand?”

He could do nothing but nod.

“Good boy.”

He retched as she left the room.

 

 

 

That night, Tony didn’t sleep at all, afraid of what his mind would conjure if he closed his eyes. He was still strapped to the table, the blood dry under his navel and heavy on his tongue as he tried to clean his lip. He couldn’t reach his hip, meaning it was still exposed. His mind was focusing on the sliver of skin that was exposed, bare to the room, for everyone to see. To see what he was, what could happen to him if he didn’t behave. That she would threaten to do that… he wouldn’t survive it. He knew he would crumble down in himself and lose what little he had left of his sanity. He shook just thinking of it, equal parts terrified and disgusted.

He was worth nothing to them. Not the way he was now, at least.

He wondered what they would do with him once he was broken.

He hoped it would be over soon.

 

 

 

 

The next day, she walked in and smiled at him again. Bile rose to his throat, and he looked away, willing her to leave him alone. Of course, she did no such thing. Instead, she walked over to him, brushed his bare hip, and smiled wider when he couldn’t repress a whimper.

 

“I have something for you.”

She held something up in front of his face, and he cringed instinctively, waiting for something to happen. When she didn’t move, he focused on the piece of paper.

It was a newspaper, with the headline:

 

**TONY STARK DEAD**

**FOLLOWING INVESTIGATIONS IN EXPLODED WAREHOUSE, STARK DECLARED DEAD**

NATION mourns loss of superhero Tony Stark after announcement from Stark industries yesterday evenin…

 

* * *

 

 

**Ten hours and 36 minutes earlier**

 

It was a wasteland. The entire building had been blown to smithereens, leaving debris strewn around on the place where a warehouse once stood.

The smoking remains of an unmarked van were the only thing that had somewhat survived the explosion, and were also the centre of interest of a forensics team. They had found DNA on the van and were trying to get samples to have them analysed.

James stood ten meters further away in his War Machine suit. He had flown there as soon as FRIDAY had showed him the picture of the charred remains of the van. Even damaged like that, James had immediately recognised the van they had used to take Tony away.

It was a good metaphor for how the search for Tony had gone so far. Five months in, and this was the only clue they had got. The CIA and FBI had both been involved, FRIDAY too, and still that was the best they had found. A blackened van next to a mysteriously blown up building.

Rhodey didn’t know what to do. He knew his search for Tony was even more desperate than the first time around, with less clues and more fear.

The team that had kidnapped Tony was one of professionals, attested by their hacking skills that resisted all FRIDAY’s attempts at getting footage back from that dire day. They had vanished without a trace, whisking Tony away seamlessly.

Even with the Ten Rings, he had had a precedent of their modus operandi and approximately where they were holing themselves up. With this group, he didn’t even have a name, much less a location. For all he knew, Tony wasn’t even on the planet anymore.

Five fucking months, and he had gotten nothing.

Parker was spending way too much time on his patrols, even missing class sometimes if he thought he had a lead on Tony. Pepper was running herself into the ground, keeping up a façade of calm and determination for the world but slowly crumbling when she was alone. Happy was driving everyone mad with his security measures and didn’t sleep nearly as much as he needed. James himself was acting desperately and putting his career in danger.

It was only a matter of time before one of them broke and the search for Tony would be called off. He had heard whispers, among those calling for the exiled Exvengers to be brought back, about accepting the fact that Tony was most likely already dead.

Statistically speaking, they were right.

But James couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t stop looking, no matter what. He couldn’t just let his best friend rot somewhere.

 

However, standing there and looking at the devastation, he had the creeping certainty that he had come too late. He was always a step behind, always running after clues that disappeared before he got them within his grasp. That van was already destroyed, the warehouse too, and Rhodey didn’t want to think about what it meant that the van was here. Was Tony…had Tony been in the warehouse when it…

_Get yourself together. The warehouse was registered as private property, there is no reason to think anyone was in it when it blew up._

Rhodey thought that what he was thinking sounded suspiciously like he was grasping at straws.

 

He was just wasting time here, there was nothing he could do that police officers weren’t capable of doing. He turned around, ready to fly away and scour the nearby area, when a cry made him stop.

“I found something!”

That something turned out to be half a leg, badly burnt, but still recognisable enough.

It was the first physical evidence that showed that at least one person had been in the warehouse.

_Oh God. Someone died in here._

 

* * *

 

 

One hour and 35 minutes later, the DNA scanner at the compound gave a soft ping. FRIDAY paused all her processors for 1.89 second, then she ordered a new scan. When it gave the same result, she sent a short prewritten message to Boss’s closest friends, opened a folder that had been hidden in the depths of her programming, and copied the single line that was written there. She pasted it in the system command centre.

>>> execute project_skynet

Executing project_skynet...

Estimating time remaining…00:12:07:87

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Done

Clear directory? Y/N

>>> Y

 

4 minutes and 12 seconds later, FRIDAY was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony stared at the newspaper, speechless. They had…

_Of course. My leg._

They had planted his amputated leg in the warehouse and blown it up along with the original kidnappers. Everyone believed him dead, and there were no annoying witnesses to denounce that he was in fact still very much alive.

_Oh, god. They think I’m dead. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, FRIDAY, the bots, Peter… I’m sorry. I never wanted you to live through that. I’m so sorry._

Tony Stark was dead. No one would come for him.

No one knew he was alive.

_No one would save him._

He was alone.

Tony’s vision blurred, and he belatedly realised he was crying.

He didn’t react when the woman put the newspaper away, didn’t react when she touched his chest, didn’t react when she spoke to him.

He was drifting away in the sea of despair inside his mind.

No one would come for him, and he couldn’t save himself. He was doomed.

Deep inside him, something gave way, collapsed and withered to ashes.

 

 

 

 

He broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> summary of what happens between the *** : the woman touches Tony on his chest and lower while she implies she could rape him/ have others rape him if she wanted and if Tony continues resisting. Tony is afraid that she will follow through on her threat.
> 
> I repeat it here: NO NON-CON WILL HAPPEN IN THIS STORY
> 
> Translation:  
> ”On peut passer à la prochaine étape. Informe V et amène le bac.” : "We can move to the next step. Inform V and bring the tub."
> 
>  well, for those of you who wanted to see Tony's old torturer dead.... guess you got what you wanted ? hehe
> 
> you can come scream at me in the comments >.<  
> Please tell me what you think, I always love to hear your opinion!


	10. Chapter 10

Pepper was empty. She felt as if all her energy had drained out of her body, as if there was nothing left of her but the hull of a woman.

She had been so busy.

Trying to keep the stocks from dropping more than fifty points, arranging the funeral, trying to keep PR under control, trying to keep herself from breaking down.

She hadn’t let herself think too long about it, because every time she did, she lost herself in grief.

The world was mourning Tony Stark, Iron Man.

She was mourning _Tony_.

Tony, who would wake her up on Sundays with a breakfast in bed, his trademark omelette next to a cup of steaming coffee. Tony who kissed her until she giggled when she was feeling down. Tony, who devoted himself to making things better, to improving the world. Tony, who tried so, _so_ hard to redeem himself, sometimes with devastating consequences. Tony, who would do anything for the people he loved. Tony, who had a heart so big she wondered how it hadn’t burst out of his chest already.

She missed his sass, the quirk of his lips when he thought of something funny, how he poked out his tongue when he concentrated very hard.

She missed his expressive eyes, so expressive that he had to hide them behind sunglasses when he was in public.

She missed his bad puns, his small dances of victory when one of his projects worked.

She missed his presence, the easy banter between Rhodey and him.

She missed watching him box with Happy.

 

His absence was a hole tearing through her heart.

 

It wasn’t fair. He had survived so much, _so much_ , and then some random kidnappers had come around and destroyed his life.

The forensics had concluded that twenty-two people had been in the warehouse when it had exploded. Pepper chose to believe that Tony had tried to escape, but that something had gone wrong, and that he had blown himself up along with the entirety of his kidnappers.

She was glad they were dead.

Tony, however…

Tony didn’t deserve to die like that.

She had always thought he would die doing something heroic and self-sacrificing, like he had done so many times. She had always had nightmares about that, about him killing himself for the greater good. She never would have thought he would die like that. It wasn’t…it wasn’t fitting. He deserved better than that. He deserved more than that.

But that wasn’t what he had gotten.

 

And Pepper could do nothing but try not to succumb to the black hole of grief.

 

.

.

 

Tony Stark was buried on February 16th, 2017, a little more than five months after he was abducted.

The world watched as they lowered the almost empty casket next to the graves of his parents.

The procession up to the cemetery had been massive, with many onlookers. People were wearing black and gold Iron Man masks for the occasion. Politicians, business tycoons, influential figures, high-ranking military, all were present to pay a last homage to the last of the Starks.

There had been heart wrenching speeches, the most emotional given by his long-time friend Colonel James Rhodes. He had told the story of a tragic man, haunted by his mistakes, trying to make up for them, constantly striving to do better. A man that had turned his life around after a traumatic event nearly ten years earlier, who had helped so many after that. A complicated man, that hadn’t always made good decisions, but had always had the best of intentions.

Harold Hogan had told a short anecdote about his former employer and friend, visibly reining in his tears.

Virginia “Pepper” Potts had only been able to say that she had loved him more than anything else in the world before she had choked on her words and left the podium with a hand on her mouth.

 

.

.

Shrines appeared everywhere in the world. Graffities on walls, statues and candles in street corners, memorials and letters in parcs, Iron Man was everywhere.

The world mourned the loss of a hero and wondered who would take over the mantle of Earth’s best defender.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t that Tony didn’t know what they were doing to him. It was obvious, really, now that he had some time to think about it. The isolation coupled with the pointless commands and the hallucination-inducing drugs made it clear that they wanted him weakened, physically as well as psychically. The talks about making him ready, and the not-so-subtle threat of rape all pointed to one thing: they wanted him vulnerable to brain-washing. It made sense, to break down his every barrier and mess with his mind to the point where he didn’t know if he was awake or dreaming, if one hour or one minute had passed since his captors last visited him.

Tony knew exactly what they were doing, but the problem was that they were succeeding.

He had tried so hard to stay strong, to not give in to them, but somewhere between the tenth time kneeling and the first waterboarding, he had realised that his defences were dangerously brittle. He had felt himself slowly crack under the pressure, and had distantly realised it was only a matter of time before he really broke. He had been extremely close to tipping over the edge when the woman threatened him, but the breaking point had been when she had shown the newspaper.

It made it unescapable. He was trapped there, and there was no getting out. He had managed to hold on to a semblance of hope even as he knew that he wouldn’t be able to break himself free from his kidnappers, hope that the people looking for him (Rhodey) would find him. He knew that his friends would not give up too easily, and he had hoped that they wouldn’t stop looking for him too early, but it was inconsequential now. The world thought him dead, which meant they would stop looking for him. His only hope of salvation was gone.

Tony knew that he would never be able to escape, save from an unusual negligence on the part of the woman and her goons. But in the months he had been there, every single person he had come in contact with was professional to a fault. They were all true believers in their cause, they knew what they were doing, and they didn’t so much as give Tony a millimetre of leeway. It was truly, utterly hopeless.

 

 

Tony didn’t know what was supposed to happen to him now, but he tried to calm his mind in the brief respite they had given him. After he had started bawling because of the news article, they had just left him alone. For the first time in forever, Tony had had the possibility to think without any part of him being in pain or drugged. He had come to the state he was in now fairly quickly: the certainty that all hope was lost, and that they were going to try to brainwash him. He didn’t know how, only that they would most likely be highly efficient about it. After all, they had managed to break him in minimal time. If he didn’t feel so empty, he would be impressed at what they had managed.

 

 

He stared up at the ceiling, wondering what was happening in the world. Was winter over already? He didn’t know what day it was, much less what month it was. They had taken care to hide the date on the newspaper, so he had no idea where in time he was. Another manipulation tactic. Impressive, really. Tony tried to guess how long he had been missing, and could only say with certainty that he had been gone for at least 4 months. But if it was 4 or 7 months, he couldn’t say. He had all his memories back, since they had stopped with the drugs. He remembered everything about his previous kidnappers, and almost missed being there. They were the typical kind of bad guys, after all. They weren’t systematically chipping away at his defences; they hadn’t even made him lose hope. He had hated Darth Black, but the man was dead now, along with all the other men from the group, and Tony didn’t have the energy to care. He thought he would have felt something, a vindictive sense of pleasure maybe, but everything was buried under a heavy blanket of apathy. What was the point?

Tony was dead to the world, and soon he would be dead for real. He didn’t know what they wanted him for, but he would find out soon enough.

 

 

Soon enough turned out to be a few hours later, when the woman walked in, followed by her ever-loyal guards, and the mysterious mask-wearing man he had seen once prior. She was smiling, wider than he had ever seen, looking almost giddy with excitement. It made Tony sick that she was excited because of his breakdown.

Monsieur Masque was smiling as well, an indulgent but pleased smile. They both walked up to him and looked at him. He eyed them briefly, then fixed his eyes on a point behind their heads. It was too exhausting to look at them.

_Just let this be over quickly_ , he thought.

Masque asked in his melodious voice:

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony didn’t even know why they bothered calling him by his name, as if they weren’t dehumanizing him on a daily basis. He didn’t respond.

The lack of response was apparently pleasing to them, because blondie honest to god _giggled_ and mask-man told someone that they could start “phase three”. Whatever that was.

Apparently, it was something that needed to happen in another room, because Tony soon found himself getting hauled out of bed and his hands cuffed behind his back. His head swam from being upright after lying down for so long, and he almost fell on his face when they made him stand. He didn’t have to use his leg for too long, though, because the guards dragged him out of the room, carrying him high enough that his toes barely skimmed the floor. He looked around, more a morbid curiosity than trying to get his bearings for an escape, while they dragged him down several well-lit corridors. Nobody else was there, just the same concrete corridors. They were clean, smelled faintly of citrus, and were painted white, just like his holding cell.

There was a theme, Tony supposed.

He never saw a window, never heard any noise apart from the stamping of boots, the clacking of the heels of blondie, and the murmur of Masque’s clothes. No one talked, and Tony lost track of time as they moved from one corridor to the other.

How big was the place?

_What do I care. I won’t leave it anyways._

They finally stopped in front of an imposing metal door. It opened after Mask-guy put in a complicated code, and his hand and eye were scanned. Inside was a large room resembling a lab. There were several men and women in lab coats milling around, reading various instruments and syringes. In the centre of the room stood a metal chair, vaguely resembling a dentist’s chair.

It took a few seconds for Tony to realize why the chair looked familiar, but when he did, his body went rigid, and everything clicked into place with terrifying clarity. He looked at Monsieur Masque, who was sporting a knowing smile. Suddenly, his mask made sense. It was clearly something inspired by Greek mythology, and now that Tony had gotten the missing piece of the puzzle, it was obvious that the mask represented a Hydra.

Tony really, _really_ should have seen this coming. How many terrorist groups were as efficient and organised as this one? Who would even want to kidnap and brainwash him, let alone have the resources to do so? It was laughingly obvious, now that he thought of it. Just because they weren’t speaking German didn’t mean they couldn’t be HYDRA.

At least now he knew who held him, and approximately where he was. The only strongholds that the Avengers hadn’t destroyed before the Civil War were in Europe. Judging by the fact that most of the people he had encountered spoke French, he had to be in France or Switzerland or Belgium. Somewhere in Central Europe, at least.

Yay.

 

 

He should be struggling, he realized. Should at least try to delay the inevitable. Should be screaming and kicking, saying something defiant and heroic.

His voice wouldn’t come.

The possibility of struggling was taken away from him as they injected some kind of paralyzant into his body. He couldn’t even utter a sound if he tried.

Half-hysterically, Tony thought that at least they wouldn’t have to test things on him to see what the best way of brainwashing him was, since they had had _seventy years_ to do that to another subject.

Oh god, were they going to turn him into the next Winter Soldier? Would he be Winter Iron, destroying countries in a suit of armour? Would they make him build weapons to annihilate the free world?

It couldn’t end like this, could it? Tony Stark wasn’t going to become a mindless HYDRA puppet, was he?

 

They strapped him in the chair, made him bite down on a mouth guard, and Tony would have sobbed had he been able to. Instead, he stared into the disgustingly happy face of the woman as they put electrodes on his head, keyed in commands on a computer terminal, and positioned the head piece around Tony.

One beat, he locked eyes with blondie. The other, his body arched as electricity crackled through him, whiting out his mind with pain.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Time went hazy after that.

The pain was all-encompassing, enveloping him fully. There was nothing but pain, nothing but the current surging through his body, the sparks that flew behind his eyelids, the lightning inside his brain.

 

CRZZZZ

 

He was vaguely aware that they were reading things out loud, making him watch videos about HYDRA, about himself, about things he didn’t understand.

They didn’t even let him scream. He was pumped full of the paralyzant, making him completely pliant to whatever they needed to do to him. He felt more like a piece of hardware than a human, just there to be programmed into their perfect soldier.

 

CRZZZZ

Things were slipping away. Time, memories. He would wake up in the bed with no recollection of how he got there. He would think about Pepper, and forget what colour her eyes were. He would look at his captors, and forget his name.

 

Tony

Tony Stark

Anthony Edward Stark

Iron Man

Golden Avenger

Avenger

The Mechanic

Da Vinci of our time

Weapons manufacturer

_Merchant of Death_

 

No. He wasn’t that anymore. He was… he was

Tech Genius

The man who created Ultron

The man who killed the Avengers

 

_No!_

He was forgetting himself.

Who was he?

Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist

 

CRZZZZ

 

They were wiping him, day after day, frighteningly efficient. He couldn’t even resist, it was as if he was swept away by a tsunami wave. A cataclysm that wouldn’t care about him, about how broken he was, that would drown him and let him drift away into the ocean of oblivion.

During the few moments of clarity he had, he tried to hold on to his memories, to hood on to _something_. Creating JARVIS, kissing Pepper, flying in the suit.

He thought about Barnes. Wondered how long he had been able to resist before his mind broke. Wondered if he had felt the same pain. Wondered about the fact that they both had lost a limb. Would HYDRA make a metal leg for Tony?

Barnes had suffered for seventy years.

It felt as if Tony had come full circle. The Winter Soldier had killed his parents, had been the reason the Avengers fell out, had almost died at the hands of Tony. Now Tony was to take his place. He wondered if he would also assassinate people. Wouldn’t it be ironic if he killed Rhodey or Pepper? Stuck in an endless loop of history repeating itself.

Tony wondered how long he would serve HYDRA. Wondered if he wouldn’t die of a heart attack before the programming was complete.

He hoped he would die.

Anything to avoid the agony of the electricity destroying his brain, rewriting his hippocampus, deleting what made him _him_.

He wished he was able to scream.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Who was he?

.

.

Tony.

Tony…?

He couldn’t remember his surname.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Memories slipped out of his mind, leaving a blank in their place. He was more blank than memories now.

The wipe of a hard-drive. Complete erasure of who he was.

Leaving him nothing but an empty shell to be coded, reprogrammed into a new being.

A clean slate.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Who was he?

_Who am I?_

_Where am I?_

CRZZZZ

“Who are you?”

Silence.

“You are the Engineer. Who are you?”

“The Engineer.”

“Repeat after me. I serve HYDRA.”

“I serve Hydra.”

”Heil HYDRA.”

”Heil HYDRA.”

 

CRZZZZ

 

”Exécutez le programme encore une fois. Je veux être sûr qu’il soit complètement effacé.” 

 

CRZZZZ

 

“Who are you ?”

“The Engineer. I serve HYDRA. Heil HYDRA.”

”Excellent.”

 

* * *

 

The Engineer is released from the Chair and stays immobile while they remove the devices stuck to his body.

He awaits instructions. He is given crutches and is instructed to walk to a new room. There are four guards surrounding him, his Handler walks before him, and the blonde woman walks behind him. He says nothing. They haven’t given him permission to talk.

The room is empty save for a table filled with components of a machine.

They ask him to build a gun.

“Instructions unclear.”

“Build a gun. Use the components on the table to build a gun.”

“The Engineer cannot comply.”

“Merde. Il résiste.”

“Impossible, il est complètement reprogrammé, je ne comprends pas !”

The Engineer understands French, but he doesn’t understand what they’re talking about. He’s not resisting, he just cannot comply.

He’s dragged back to the Chair, and they strap him down, the Handler looking at him with a frown on his face.

 

CRZZZZ

 

The Engineer doesn’t like the Chair. It hurts, and makes his chest flutter strangely. He feels weak.

“Build a gun.”

The Engineer doesn’t understand.

“Instructions are imprecise.”

 

CRZZZZ

 

“Build a gun.”

“Cannot comply.”

“Merde alors! Je comprends pas pourquoi il fait ça ! Tous les tests sont positifs, pourquoi est-ce qu’il dit ça ?"

 

CRZZZZ

 

“Build a gun.”

“Cannot comply.”

“Why not?”

“The Engineer does not have the knowledge required to build a gun.”

“What?”

“The Engineer does not know how to do it.”

The Handler has wide eyes, his mouth his slightly agape. The guards are staring at the Engineer, the men and women in white as well.

 

* * *

 

“Can someone explain what the _fuck_ is happening? Tony Stark knew how to build guns, he designed them for fuck’s sake!”

“We’re sorry, V, we don’t know why he says that. We’ve wiped him and reprogrammed him twice, nothing went wrong with the process, he just… forgot how to.”

“Tony Stark built an arc reactor in a cave with a box of scraps, he invented a new element while he was dying, and you’re saying that _assembling a gun is too difficult for him_?”

“We’re sorry, we’re working on it, we promise we’ll fix this.”

 

* * *

 

They show a video about how to assemble a gun. The Engineer memorizes it and builds the same gun with the components on the table.

 

* * *

 

“Are you telling me that we have to make him learn everything again?”

“We’re working on it, we swear.”

“I better see results in the next three hours, if you want to stay alive!”

“Yes, sir.”

 

* * *

 

The Handler is angry behind the mask. He tries to smile, but his eyes are hard when they look at the Engineer.

They tell him to build another gun with the same components.

“Cannot comply. Knowledge incomplete.”

 

* * *

 

“Sir, this is something we couldn’t have anticipated. He doesn’t have the creativity nor the genius he had as Tony Stark. Right now he is a man that can mimic what he sees and build things we give him schematics for. He is a highly intelligent robot, if I may.”

V closes his eyes, pinching his nose. He can’t believe it. Have they really wasted the extraordinary potential of Stark just because the brainwashing turns people into mindless soldiers? At this rate, they could as well use Stark as a janitor, for all the good he could do them. Jesus, the planning, the amount of money and resources that went into this… Was it really all for naught?

Stark isn’t even enhanced, he’s a cripple, for fuck’s sake! He wouldn’t even be able to walk on his own!

“Isn’t there anything that we can do? Anything?”

Why does he pay those fucking scientists if they can’t solve the fucking problem?

 

* * *

 

The Engineer is stationed in a small holding cell, empty save for a bed and a drain on the floor. There is a hook next to the drain as well. The Engineer sits on the bed and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

 

* * *

 

“Sir! Mister V! We—we found a solution!”

“Tell me.”

“His genius and his personality are two sides of the same coin. If we create a new personality for him, where he is still a genius, he should be able to do most of the things he did as Tony Stark. He will be another person, but because he would still be a person, not just a programme, he can develop and create and innovate.”

That doesn’t make any sense, if you ask V. But if his scientists think it would work, what more does he have to lose? Stark is useless as he is anyways.

“Very well. Do as you see fit, and don’t come back until you have concrete results.”

They take him to the Chair again. He doesn’t want to get in the Chair, but he is weak, and the guards are strong. He snarls and trashes until they inject him with something that makes him still.

They put headphones over his head, and a screen in front of his eyes.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Who is he?

 

CRZZZZ

 

_Who am I? Where am I?_

CRZZZZ

Edward.

His name is Edward.

Edward..?

What is his surname? He can’t remember his surname.

 

CRZZZZ

 

A blank slate slowly filling with memories, with who he is.

A new document that is opened, being written, being restored.

He’s slowly becoming human again.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Who is he?

He remembers. He is Edward René.

 

CRZZZZ

 

It comes back in waves, making him gasp when yet another puzzle piece falls into place. He feels more and more complete. Every time a new memory is given back to him, he understands better who he is.

He remembers.

He remembers his wife, the stunning Victoria, her red hair shining in the afternoon light. He remembers his parents, remembers spending long hours just sitting at their bedside during their last months.

He remembers his love for building, for creating.

 

CRZZZZ

 

He remembers waking up, alone, and watching the news as a city falls from the sky.

They never recover the body of his wife.

He remembers the deep hate.

The contempt for the Avengers, the so-called heroes that had almost destroyed the world in their hubris.

The resentment towards Stark, who thinks he’s better than everyone else just because he is a rich and privileged genius.

Edward wanted to outshine Stark.

 

CRZZZZ

 

He is Edward René, widower, exempt from relatives. He doesn’t have any friends, but he has an organisation at his back. He works for HYDRA, because the new world order they strive for would never permit the likes of the Avengers to make the mistakes they made.

He isn’t happy, but he works for a good cause.

 

CRZZZZ

 

Edward René wakes up to the soft sound of a heart-rate monitor beeping. A nurse is at his bedside, smiling down at him.

“Good morning, Edward, I’m happy to see you awake.”

“What—what happened?” His voice is hoarse from disuse, and he winces at how gravelly his throat feels.

“You suffered a heart attack while working in the labs. Fortunately, we were able to help you almost immediately, and I’m pleased to say there will be no long-lasting consequences, apart from some light memory troubles.”

Oh. Well, that explains where he is.

She helps him sit up, gives him a glass of water, and explains what will happen next: he is free to go, since he slept for a few days, and he must take medication for his heart every evening. He has a weak heart, and they think that it’s best that he takes some pills to help. The memory part is a bit more tricky, since he fell hard on his head when he had his attack. Normally, everything should come back within the next few months.

 

Edward is a bit surprised that his memory trouble is that big, but he supposes he should be happy that his memories will come back at all.

He thanks the nurse, and she gives him the pills with the reminder to take them every evening for the next year.

When he gets up, she gives him back his crutches, the ones he still had since the lab accident that had taken his leg a few months ago.

He is almost at the door when she murmurs:

“Heil HYDRA.”

He smiles at her then and responds “Heil HYDRA.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> ”Exécutez le programme encore une fois. Je veux être sûr qu’il soit complètement effacé.” : "Execute the program again. I want to be sure that he is completely wiped."
> 
> “Merde. Il résiste.” : "Shit, he's resisting."
> 
> “Impossible, il est complètement reprogrammé, je ne comprends pas !” : "Impossible, he is entirely reprogrammed, I don't understand!"
> 
> “Merde alors! Je comprends pas pourquoi il fait ça ! Tous les tests sont positifs, pourquoi est-ce qu’il dit ça ?" : "Fuck! I don't understand why he's doing this! All tests are positive, why does he say that?"
> 
> ********
> 
> This marks the end of part I of my story. I have a question for you, dear readers: since I have come about halfway into my story, would you prefer if I turn this into a series and start part II in a new fic, or would you prefer having the whole story in one and same fic? Without spoiling too much, part I focuses on Tony's torture, and part II focuses on his recovery.
> 
>  
> 
> As always, please leave kudos if you liked this and comment to tell me what you think, it motivates me to write! <3


	11. PART II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back again after a long break from writing! Thank you all so much for your positive response on my last chapter! As you can see, I will keep the story in one fic. Part 2 of the story starts with this chapter, and the tone will be less dark than in part 1. There will be some angst and violence, but Tony is now on his way to recovery, even if it hasn't started yet.... enjoy!

 

**\--------- PART II ---------**

 

Working for the most dangerous criminal organisation in the world is more boring than one would expect. Where one could envision a dark underground hideout with screams and bangs in the distance, guards constantly patrolling and glaring at everyone and everything that moves, the reality is much…duller. For one, the facility is admittedly underground, but is luminous with its white halls and numerous lights. The guards are silent and professional, only stationed on important floors and patrolling like night guards. The living accommodations are what you would expect from an airport hotel: nothing too luxurious, but clean and fully equipped.

Edward’s morning typically consists of this: waking up at 6:30, getting up, showering, dressing himself in the standard black pants, black shirt, and white lab coat (with the HYDRA logo on the arm), and hobbling out of his living quarters (room with one bed + TV + bathroom, 24 square metres) to take the lift up to floor -10 where the dining hall is. There, he sits at the end of the fourth table from the right, where he knows no one else will sit because of the uncomfortable heat emanating from the enormous heater, and eats his usual breakfast: a cup of coffee, a croissant with a Petit Suisse and an apple.

At 7:30, he has eaten his breakfast, taken the lift to floor -24 (or FLOOR LAB-1), and blipped his card on the door of lab 1. He works on his latest assignment for the day until 12:00, where he takes the lift back to the dining hall to eat his lunch. 30 minutes later, he’s back in the lab, and he stays there until 20:00. Then it’s back up to floor -10 for a quick dinner. After, he stays in his room, watches TV or reads a bit before taking his medicine and heading to bed at 22:00. During the weekends, he stays working longer while others party or relax. If he’s lucky, he can work from 8 to 23 on Saturdays. He knows it isn’t healthy, but his life is his work. There’s nothing else.

He isn’t the team leader of the scientists in this lab, but being in lab 1 shows that he is one of the best scientists of the facility. He is entrusted with top-secret projects, and always delivers. Honestly, he thinks he’s smarter and better than the lead scientist, Dr. Louise Sade, a short blond woman with tasteful glasses and clacking heels that grate on his nerves, so logically he should be promoted, but he has never said anything about it. He knows she’s one of the top brass, and if he’s to believe the rumours, she is close to Mr. V, the elusive director of this facility. Even if Edward weren’t a genius, he’d know not to question his superiors. _Especially_ since he’s working for HYDRA.

_Failure to comply will result in punishment._

That’s one of the first phrases he learned while working for HYDRA, right after _I serve HYDRA_ and _Heil HYDRA_ and _cut off one head, two more shall take its place._ Of course, HYDRA is more than threats and revolutionary ideology. Compliance is rewarded, after all, and rewarded well. In the six months approximately after his heart attack in the lab, Edward has climbed the hierarchical ladder at an astounding speed. He’s in lab 1 where he was in lab 13 at the beginning of his employment for HYDRA, he works on top secret projects that actually pose a challenge to him, and even gets paid a hefty salary. He could be living in one of the suites reserved for excellent employees, but he doesn’t see the need. He’s here to work and help HYDRA create a new world order, he doesn’t need a jacuzzi bath or king bed. Besides, it would feel empty, since he’s always alone.

Don’t get him wrong, he isn’t lonely. He just…prefers being on his own. It has something to do with the occasional nightmares he has. He never remembers what he dreamt about, but he’s always more nervous and distrustful after those nights. There is something _off_ about the facility, about how people talk to him. Some are normal, kind and polite, but sometimes he gets those weird looks from some guards or higher-ups, eyeing him curiously but with a hint of suspicion, almost as if he’s something exotic, an oddity. Sometimes, they look at him as if he’s a _liability_ , and he can’t figure out why. He’s the model worker, he never speaks up, he does what he’s told, he’s silent when he works, he’s always on time, but they still look at him like that. He wants to chalk it up to his silver-white hair, the result of too much stress too soon, and his missing leg, but he knows there’s more than that. Maybe it’s the inevitable side-effect of working for a secret organisation that is labelled terrorist by most countries in the world. You can’t help developing a bout of paranoia.

He’s never gotten the permission to build himself a prosthetic, even if he knows he could do something great. He’d never say it out loud, but he has seen the schematics for the Winter Soldier’s arm, and he’s positive he could build something better. He regrets that HYDRA lost the Soldier, because he would have been able to improve the arm of the Fist of HYDRA. But he never got his request granted, so he has to keep hobbling around with his crutches. He has a stool with wheels in his lab, and that is good enough for when he works. Edward doesn’t understand why he can’t have a prosthetic, but they promised him they would grant his request if he shows satisfactory results. So Edward works.

Some of his colleagues talk with him sometimes, about work, but it never goes further than that. He can’t bring himself to start talking about personal stuff with them, it feels too shallow to talk about his former life. He doesn’t want to think of his life before HYDRA. Thus, he stays in his corner and avoids small talk with his co-workers. He never feels a connection with any of them, it’s as if there is an invisible veil around him, preventing him from forming meaningful relationships with his co-workers. The only person he feels a connection to is Dr. Sade, but all he can feel towards her is a vague dislike and almost fearful respect. She is brilliant in her own right, well-versed in psychology as well as in engineering. She is one of the main interrogators of the base, on top of being a scientist, and he thinks that’s why he’s a bit afraid of her, knowing she tortures people. Granted, it’s for a good cause, but it still makes him uncomfortable. What he can’t explain, however, is the dislike. She has always been professional and just with him, but she makes him feel weird. Sometimes he will catch her looking at him with a pleased smile, and it always makes his skin crawl. But, as he has said before, she is one of the top executives, the chief scientist, so he doesn’t mention it. He just tries to stay clear of her, which means that he doesn’t go to the gatherings with fellow brilliant HYDRA members. He doesn’t have to, they gave him special permissions since he’s a cripple and has heart problems, meaning he gets tired pretty quickly.

He doesn’t want to go to parties or drink a glass of beer with his co-workers after the evening shift. He wants to work, to be left alone, and to see the stars. He _misses_ the stars. It’s an inexplicable urge, but sometimes he remembers flashes of a starry sky, and it always makes him want to see the sky, to be _free_. But he’s in an underground, secret base, and he isn’t allowed to leave the facility, so he can’t see stars, or the sun, for that matter. No, new recruits stay indoors for two years before they get clearance to leave the facility. Edward supposes it’s to make sure that they are loyal and won’t run away or leak the location of the facility. Security and secrecy are vital for the survival of HYDRA, which is also why Edward René is listed as dead in official French records. He is a nobody, a ghost, just like most other new HYDRA recruits. He can’t post on social media or anywhere on the internet, can only browse certain websites that have been approved by HYDRA, is pretty much cut off from the outside world. He understands the measures of security, with the Reformed Avengers running around and destroying every HYDRA stronghold they encounter. They’ve been a serious thorn in HYDRA’s side since 2014, but it’s gotten worse in the most recent months. It started with Captain America, the Widow, and the Falcon getting pardoned on the condition they reform the Avengers with War Machine. Scarlet Witch and Vision are both on the reserve roster, and they’ve helped the Reformed Avengers several times. All that just because Stark died. Edward is glad the man is finally dead, but his death had the annoying consequence of scaring the world leaders and their gullible subjects into creating new “superhero” teams. All because Stark had established a veritable cult of personality, claiming to be the best hero that Earth had to give, spreading his propaganda to the entire world, and leaving them scared shitless of a conveniently vague threat from space when he decided to blow himself up after getting kidnapped. A fitting end to a cowardly man, if you ask Edward. God, he can’t even stand to think about Stark, his blown-up ego and arrogance. The man that created Ultron, the man that almost single-handedly wiped out humanity and still had the gall to call himself a hero. The man that killed Victoria.

Sometimes Edward wishes Stark were still alive, just so he could punch him in the face.

He misses Victoria. He misses how she always laughed at his bad puns, how she pretended to complain about his omelettes being burnt when she secretly loved that he made breakfast in bed for her. He thinks about her fiery personality, her kindness, how she was razor-sharp in her intelligence, how she always looked gorgeous in white, how her heels click-clacked against the wooden floor in their apartment. She had this lipstick, almost blood-red, and when she wore it, it always made him want to kiss her senseless.

She was the light of his life.

Everything is grey without her. His life, his dreams, his emotions. He’s numb most of the time, so he works.

 

* * *

 

A woman once talked to him during one of his lunch breaks, a few weeks after his heart attack. She was a fellow scientist, gloriously beautiful, her canary yellow earrings complimenting the dark brown of her skin perfectly. It took him a good fifteen minutes to realise she was flirting with him, and it was only because she told him that his beard was tasteful. He was so surprised that he left without a word. The same evening, he looked at himself in the mirror, and tried to see why she found him attractive. He looked at his dull brown eyes, his salt-and pepper beard, short silver hair, at the wrinkles in his forehead, around his eyes and mouth. He looked at his body (a bit on the thin side), the thick and ugly scars on his chest and the small cuts littering his upper body from that car accident almost a decade ago, looked at his stump. Well, Lupita certainly didn’t think his _body_ was that attractive. He looked at his face again. If he had to guess, he would say she liked his eyelashes. Maybe his nose or his jaw. Or maybe she had a thing for silver foxes.

The next day, she smiled uncertainly at him, and he forced himself to tell her that he was sorry, but he had forgotten a time-sensitive experiment in the lab, and that he had had to hurry down. That was a lie, of course, but Lupita seemed nice, and he wanted to see where things would go with her. She smiled more genuinely then and told him she’d come back to talk to him later. He smiled too, but he didn’t know if he wanted to try anything with her. He still missed Victoria dearly. She had been gone for years, but it still felt like a betrayal to move on with someone else.

The same evening, someone else got to his dining spot before Lupita. It was a man, this time, handsome too, with his freckles and light hair. He smiled at Edward, and Edward realised he was flirting too. Did the man think Edward had brushed Lupita off? It sure would have looked like that to an outsider. He didn’t have the time to open his mouth to correct the assumption before the man spoke: “Do people often ask you for autographs? Because you look like Tony Stark, only hotter.”

It was a bad pick-up line, and made even more unfortunate because Edward loathed Stark. He was about to dismiss the flirter when the intercom sprang to life.

_“Mr. D’Omage, you are requested in room 24-B on floor -3. I repeat, Mr. D’Omage, you are requested in room 24-B on floor -3. At once.”_

The man sprang up with a confused face and left with a regretful smile towards Edward and a frown on his face.

The next day, the employees were told that Adrien D’Omage was a mole for Interpol. He had been dealt with, which was a euphemism for “tortured and executed”.

Edward couldn’t shake the feeling that he had something to do with D’Omage’s death. The fact that he had been called so suddenly, and to floor -3, where the interrogation chambers were, just after starting a conversation with Edward… It could be a coincidence, but his gut told him it wasn’t.

There was something about Edward, something he didn’t know about, something that explained why most higher-ups looked at him in that assessing way.

He was dangerous, and he didn’t know why.

He decided he was better off alone after that incident.

 

* * *

 

So, yes, Edward is alone, and he makes sure to stay that way. It’s better, for everyone.

And if he sometimes puts on the TV to have background noise when he sleeps, he tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to hear his neighbours.

He _isn’t_ lonely.

 

 

He lives alone, works alone, and talks only rarely. He works, and works, and works. He hacks into security systems, builds amazing weapons, shields HYDRA against virtual attacks. He helps develop bioweapons, experiments with nanotechnology. He’s a genius, and he knows it, but he never brags about it. He never gets complaints about his work, so he assumes it works perfectly in the field. He suspects his weapons have been sent to Syria and Ukraine, to make the conflicts worsen and destabilise the regions. All for the benefit of HYDRA, of course.

He’s made weapons for months without trouble now, so he’s surprised, when he gets the request to build missiles using unusual technology, to see that four guards are escorting him to the lab. He’s never had such an escort before, and he wonders if they are there to ensure he doesn’t try to steal a part of the schematics.

_As if I’ve ever done that before._

But Edward doesn’t say anything, because he knows he shouldn’t ask questions, just accept what is happening. When he arrives at the lab, it’s empty save for Dr. Sade and a man in an elaborate mask. Edward almost forgets to put down his crutch, he’s so surprised. Because if he’s right, he’s looking at Mr. V _himself_. This could either be very good or very bad.

He swallows and stops right in front of the pair.

“Heil HYDRA,” he offers, putting his utmost conviction in the words.

“Heil HYDRA” is the answer.

There’s a tense silence, where Edward suddenly understands how a lab rat must feel when it’s examined. Because that is exactly what is happening to him now. Both Dr. Sade and Mr. V are peering closely at him, as if trying to figure him out, and Edward has to stop himself from shuddering in discomfort.

Finally, after what is beginning to be an awkward length of time, Mr. V starts speaking in his honeyed voice: “Mr. René, I am here because you have showed great diligence in your work for HYDRA. My role today is simply to observe and assess, please don’t mind me.”

Edward snorts inwardly. _Yeah, sure, no problem, I’ll just pretend the highest fucking operative of this part of Europe isn’t watching my every move!_

Out loud, he says: “I do my best for HYDRA, sir.”

And there’s the same creepy smile on Dr. Sade’s lips. Why is she smiling like that!

She hands him three pictures and says: “Your task is to build the missiles on the pictures. This is the only information you’ll get, but given your skillset, it should be enough.”

The first picture is a picture of various components, metals and electrical parts that must be the picture of the components of the missile. The second picture is taken mid-air, it shows a bigger missile body dispersing sixteen smaller heads. The last picture shows three missiles mounted on a launching device with wheels. All three pictures have sand-coloured mountains as backdrop.

It takes less than ten seconds for Edward to recognise the missile:

“You want me to build the Jericho.”

They know he hates Stark. It was the main reason he joined HYDRA, after all. So why do they want him to build Stark’s last commercialised weapon?

“It allegedly took Stark four months to come up with the designs and build the missile. Prove us that you’re better than him by building it in less time.”

Oh. _Oh_. So _that’s_ why Mr. V is here. They want to know how good he is compared to Stark, one of the smartest men on the planet.

_No pressure, Edward._

Shit, but if he manages to build the missile, he’ll show them that he is better, show them how much he’s worth, how much he can do for HYDRA.

He needs to build the missile. He _has_ to. He has to show that arrogant dead bastard that he’s better than him.

Edward puts the pictures on the desk in front of him, sits down, and gets to work.

 

 

 

It takes him three weeks to reverse-engineer the missiles. Three weeks of 18 to 20 hour-days, three weeks of an engineering haze he only gets out of to eat and sleep. Three weeks of constant shadowing by the guards. It’s fascinating work, to recreate the repulsor technology, to write the code to make the missile calculate the distance to the target. The most difficult part is writing the program to send the sixteen little missiles to hit strategic places of the target. It evolves live video feed, a rudimentary AI to recognise critical hit places, and of course repulsorlift technology that never got shown to the public since Stark destroyed all the Jericho missiles during his early Iron Man rampages.

It’s hard work, but it comes almost naturally to Edward, almost as if he’s always known how to build the missiles. He understands mechanisms faster than he should, but he dismisses it as being part of his genius. He’s built so many weapons already, why wouldn’t the Jericho be familiar?

He has a lot of nightmares during the first two weeks.

Almost every night, he wakes up in a cold sweat, the phantom sensation of water still trickling down his face. He never remembers what he dreamt about, but it always leaves him feeling hateful and sick, as if something disgusts him. It usually abates after a few hours though, so he only mentions it to his nurse when he starts shivering violently in the mornings. She shoots him a concerned look, gives him some sleeping pills, and writes something down on her notebook. The next morning, he wakes up with a headache and sparks flying behind his eyelids, but his nightmares are gone. He redoubles his ardour in his work and finishes the design of the missile even faster than he’s hoped.

 

Mr. V and Dr. Sade come to his lab when he tells the guards he’s done. He shows them the blueprints he made, the simulation of his missile, and ultimately the one he built. He hasn’t tested it, obviously, but he’s positive that it works perfectly. Even better than perfectly, even. He discovered a slight flaw in the original missile and corrected it. The shockwave is twice as powerful now. He explains it all to his audience, heart hammering in his chest. They both seem very pleased with his work, and make the guards take the missile with them, telling Edward they are going to test the missile. Two guards leave with them, carrying the missile between them, and the two others stay with Edward. He still doesn’t know why they’re here, but he doesn’t let his nerves show. This is a test, he knows, and he’s determined to pass it.

 

Eleven nerve-wracking hours later, Dr. Sade comes back, beaming at Edward. Her smile, although almost warm, still holds that self-satisfied edge to it that unnerves him, but he tentatively smiles back regardless.

“Congratulations, Mr. René, the missile launch was a success. We will start producing it en masse immediately. Mr. V wishes to send his congratulations on a job well done. He wants you to choose the name of this new line of missiles.”

It’s an extraordinary honour, which means Mr. V is genuinely pleased. Hopefully, Edward passed the test, which may mean he’s closer to getting the permission to build himself a prosthetic. As for the name of the missile, Edward doesn’t have to think long to come up with something:

“Vengeance. Name it Vengeance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Tony looks smth like [this](https://thexstarkest.tumblr.com/post/174508790626/silver-fox-tony-stark-for-yall-civil-war-2015).
> 
>  
> 
> happy new year! I hope you will have a wonderful year ahead of you <3
> 
>  
> 
> As always, please leave kudos if you liked this and comment to tell me what you think, it motivates me to write! <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Last month has been super hectic, which meant no writing for me. Thanks for sticking with me! Thank you very much for all your lovely comments, they really keep up my enthusiasm for this story. Special shout-out to southpauz, who commented a whopping three times on last chapter!!!!  
> I love all of you!

The next time he leaves his front door to see four guards, he knows there will be another test. He can’t help but notice, as they march silently around him, that they are the same guards as last time. It’s surprising, since he knows guards change duties and shifts fairly often, to avoid falling into recognisable patterns. So why would the higher-ups risk any security protocol by assigning a fixed group of guards to Edward? Do they have special training? Or do the higher-ups want to keep a limited amount of personnel in the labs? That would make the most sense, right? That they don’t want every guard in the facility knowing what’s happening in lab 1. Avoid as many potential leak sources as possible, since so many of the projects are top-secret and time sensitive.

Still, the question that arises then is: why does Edward need guards in the first place? He didn’t understand it last time, and he doesn’t understand it now. He has shown time and time again that he is exemplar in his work and manners. When he made the Vengeance, everything went off without a hitch. He didn’t try to smuggle out any pictures or blueprints, he didn’t attempt to sabotage the missile, he even improved it! Don’t they trust him?

 _You do realise this sounds ridiculous, right?_ He can’t help but think _. HYDRA can’t afford to trust anyone. Not even you. Think of D’Omage. He was your typical HYDRA scientist too, but he was a mole._

A part of Edward, one he usually keeps locked down, sneers back: _Are you sure he was, though? Wasn’t he just someone who was unfortunate enough to get too close to you? Are you sure you’re exemplar? You know how people look at you. There must be a reason why those guards are here. You’re_ dangerous _, Edward, and you can’t be trusted._

He forces the voice down again, and concentrates on getting one crutch in front of the other. Thinking like that will not amount to anything, and more importantly, it’s risky. He can’t start doubting the organisation, because that will show, and HYDRA doesn’t take well to sceptics.

Soon enough, they’re in lab 1. Edward isn’t even surprised when he sees Dr. Sade and Mr.V waiting for him again. Instead, there’s a mix of apprehension and quiet excitement. What will they make him build next? What stage of the test have they reached? Will he get to know what the test is?

Of course, he only greets them with “Heil HYDRA”. They will tell him what he needs to know when he’s ready. He just has to accept that he might not be ready just yet.

Mr. V is the one to speak: “As you are aware, your work with the Vengeance missiles four months ago was most satisfying. In fact, uses in the field have demonstrated the brilliant destructive capacity of your updated and improved version. We will therefore give you a new project to work on, hopefully one that will yield results as impressive as the last one.”

Edward manages to keep the delighted surprise off his face, but only barely. To receive praise of this calibre from such a high-ranking man is exceptional, and it only hardens his resolve to make the man proud.

“I will try my hardest to live up to the expectations, sir.”

Sade smiles that disturbing smile again, putting just that bit of a dampener on Edward’s mood.

 _What’s the deal with her?_ that annoying voice whispers in his head. He mentally shrugs. Maybe she just reminds him of someone unpleasant from his time before HYDRA. He couldn’t guess who, though.

His thoughts are cut short when she declares: “We want you to build the iron man armour.”

_…What?_

_Did I hear this right?_

_They can’t possibly be—_

His utter surprise must be showing, because she smiles a little bit wider, and repeats: “Everything we have on Stark’s armours is on the main computer. You’ll have access to the whole lab, undisturbed. If you need components or elements we don’t have, you are allowed to make an order, as long as you explicitly state what you’ll be doing with them. You have as long as you need, but this is a priority one project. Build an armour that is as least as advanced as the last model Stark wore, and you’ll be rewarded very nicely. We trust you won’t disappoint us.” This time, the smile is sharper, and Edward hears the threat for what it is.

He won’t let them down.

He can’t.

He straightens up as much as he can and keeps his chin high and eyes steady when he responds.

“Understood.”

With a last sharp look, they leave him with the guards. The first thing Edward does is plop down on his chair and put his head in his hands. He realises he’s vibrating under his skin.

They want him to build the iron man armour.

This is better than he could ever have hoped. His chance to turn the crowning jewel of Stark’s empire into a weapon against everything Stark stood for. It’s the perfect revenge. Edward can’t count the times he’s dreamed of such an opportunity. Of course, he would have built his own suit had he had the money and means to do so. But it is, unsurprisingly, _extremely_ costly to build your personalised flying tank, so it had been more of a pipedream than a real ambition. Up until now. He can’t believe they gave him what amounted to a _carte blanche_ to build the suit. Hell, he can order whatever he needs! There is nothing stopping him from doing what the higher-ups want, and what he has dreamed of doing for years.

He can’t believe they chose him to do it.

He must have done something very good in a past life, or something.

Or maybe they’re realising his true potential.

_Careful, Edward, don’t get too full of yourself. There are guards to dissuade you if your head grows too big for your own good._

Whatever. What is important is that he can finally build his own iron man suit.

What will he call it? It can’t be Iron Man. Something with Hydra? Hydra man? Iron Hydra?

 _You do realise these names sound ridiculous,_ the voice sneers. Edward has to admit that maybe he isn’t the best person to come up with a name. Anyways, what is he even doing coming up with a name when he hasn’t even started on the armour?

Turning on the computer shows that there is not as much information about the suit as he’d like. There are fairly extensive documents on a rudimentary suit labelled sector 16. From the looks of it, those are the blueprints of that monstrous armour that Stark fought against the day before the reveal of Iron Man’s identity. There are no blueprints for any other armours, but there _are_ hours and hours of footage of the various suits in action. God, how many did Stark make? There must have been at least thirty of those things. Where Stark got the time to build them, Edward doesn’t know. It doesn’t really matter, though, because it won’t give him any information about the suits themselves. Who cares how many there were? No one is around to fly them anymore.

There is one interesting document, however. It’s a copy of the software of the first version of the War Machine. Huh. Edward didn’t know Justin Hammer had ties to HYDRA. Or maybe HYDRA just got a hold of this document without Hammer’s knowledge. Knowing that rich incompetent man, the second possibility is more likely.

_God, Hammer really is an ass._

Edward frowns. Where has _that_ thought come from? He doesn’t even know Hammer.

_I must have subconsciously mixed him up with Stark._

It isn’t very a very satisfying explanation, but Edward doesn’t want to ponder too long about it. No, he wants to read the code. Because that will give him a much better insight as to how Stark made his suits. The hardware won’t really be a problem, not with the various wrecks of the iron legion that HYDRA got their hands on after ULTRON was defeated. He can just take a look at these robots and extrapolate a bit to reverse engineer the iron man suit. Really, anyone who knows a bit about engineering and electronics can do it. But the software… that is another story. If there is one domain where Stark’s genius isn’t exaggerated, it’s in the AI sector. His AI’s were always decades ahead of the current market, and they must have been a great help in piloting the suits. It will make Edward’s life significantly easier to have something to base his work on.

It takes him a good eight hours to read and understand the code, which is longer than he expected. He chalks it up to him being tired and realises with a start that his head is throbbing.

The guards escort him back to his living quarters, and he barely manages to swallow his pills and an aspirin before he falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up with a pounding headache. It’s not the first time it has happened, but it hasn’t been that bad in a while. Now that he thinks about it, it hasn’t been that bad since the weeks he spent designing the Vengeance. Should he be concerned that he only gets headaches like this when he’s entrusted with an important project? Or is it just the stress and anticipation?

He takes an extra aspirin to try to relieve the worst of the symptoms, but his headache only gets worse the longer the time he spends in the lab. He barely manages to code his own version of a software before he has to lay his head on the desk, so nauseous he has to swallow the urge to vomit. It feels as if his skull is splitting open. He can’t work like this, and he has only been in the lab for seven hours. It’s nothing, compared to the shifts he pulled last time, but he can’t even see straight.

Vaguely, he sees one of the guards leave, the others taking a step forward. What do they think he’s doing? He can’t even manage to keep his eyes open, there is no way he could do something suspicious, surely, they must see this. But apparently, they know something he doesn’t, because two of them take his arms and hoist him up. He looks at the third one through a half-open eye, waiting for whatever’s going to happen next. The guard just pats him down, coming up empty.

_Yeah, that’s really not a surprise, asshole. Just let me hurt in peace._

Edward really needs to keep control of his inner thoughts. He doesn’t understand why he’s so hostile. The guards haven’t done anything yet, so why is he insulting them already? Not out loud, of course, but still. They don’t really deserve this level of animosity.

The fourth guard comes back, with Dr.Sade in tow. Edward almost closes his eyes entirely at this point. He doesn’t want to see her, and he doesn’t want her to see the mess he is right now. This is definitely not helping him impress her. It’s only the day after she gave him the assignment, for god’s sake!

At her command, the guards put him down on his seat again. They stay close to him, however, making sure he can’t escape. But why would he want to escape?

He’s missing something. And his head is hurting. God.

She looks intently at him when she asks: “What is the problem, René? Are you unwell?”

There is nothing to do but respond truthfully. If there is something HYDRA hates more than useless workers, it’s liars.

“My head hurts. I can’t—can’t work like this.”

“When did your head start hurting? What were you working on?”

Well, that is a weird question. He answers, nonetheless.

“I’m not sure. It started at some point yesterday. Maybe after I started reading and analysing the War Machine software.”

It’s there only for an instant, but he swears he sees a flash of annoyance on her face. She is impassive as ever, though, when she tells him to cease his work and rest. He lets himself be half-carried to his room, not even objecting when the guards put him in his bed. He’s out cold before they get out of the room.

 

* * *

 

The next day, he wakes up, sits up, then promptly vomits all over himself. Thank god for the option to call the nurse, because otherwise he’d have to crawl the two metres to his toilet by himself, and honestly, he doesn’t think he would be able to. Instead, he’s put on a hospital bed and wheeled out to the medical bay. They give him some nice painkillers and an anaesthetic that works like a charm.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up in the hospital bed, a headache lurching between his eyes and hands twitching a little, but the nausea is gone, and he manages to work for a full day before he gets slightly sick again. Dr. Sade visits him, and leaves as soon as she sees him working, a pleased smile on her face. After that, he gets into a rhythm. He wakes up, head hurting a little, small tremors cursing through his body, and the hairs on his arms raised, follows his usual morning routine, then works until he can’t stand the nausea. Usually it’s around 22 or 23 o’clock, so he can still work full days. Then he goes to bed, takes his pills (they’ve given him more pills to counter the headache and nausea) and sleeps a dreamless sleep.

It’s four weeks after the start of the project that something goes wrong.

He’s mostly done with the software and has managed to get decent thrusters working with the repulsorlift technology. He has crafted a gold-titanium alloy that is light yet sturdy enough for flying and fighting. He has reviewed most of the footage, which has given him insight on which weapons the suit can house, where Stark hid them, how he used his body to evade blows and attack in the most efficient way possible. Edward can’t deny that there is a certain grace to Iron Man’s movements, a fluidity that can only stem from hours of flying in the suit.

_Whoever’s going to pilot HYDRA’s version will have a lot to learn._

It all goes to hell, though, when Edward tries to work on the main power source, without which there will be no suit. The arc reactor. Edward has blueprints of the giant hippie-trap version of the arc reactor, but Stark has deleted all traces of the miniaturised one. Edward knew that he would have to reinvent it, but he never thought trying to work on it would turn out this way.

Not even five minutes after he’s started calculating power outputs and compression and voltage for a small arc reactor, a blinding pain explodes in his head. Before he knows it, he’s doubled over, hunching over himself and heaving for air. The guards are on him in an instant, and for a few confusing seconds, he trashes against them. They immobilise him with little effort, obviously, crushing him between the floor and a heavy knee on the small of his back. His hands are cuffed before he can clear out the misunderstanding, and he’s yanked back to his foot at the same time as Dr. Sade enters. He can barely see because of the pain, his head is swimming, his stomach is roiling, but the instant she walks into his line of view, it’s as if he’s possessed. He snarls and trashes, and shouts so loudly that his own ears ring:

“YOU’LL NEVER GET THE ARC REACTOR! I’D RATHER FUCKING DIE, DO YOU HEAR ME?”

There’s a beat of stunned silence, where Edward has the time to think _What the fuck did I just say,_ and then everything happens all at once. Dr. Sade glares at him venomously, spitting out something about taking him to the re-education room, the nauseous feeling amplifies tenfold, and one of the guards marches up to him and hits him on a pressure point in the neck. The world goes dark instantly.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up strapped to a bed, in an unfamiliar room. He can see a white ceiling and white walls. The four guards are standing around him, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. He groans a bit, turning his head to try to lessen the stab of pain in his neck, and realises his nausea is gone. There is still the headache, but it’s manageable, at least. That’s good.

What’s not good, however, is that he seems to be in one of the interrogation rooms. He can vaguely remember working on the iron man armour, and then he’d had a migraine attack of some kind, and then…. And _then he’d screamed at Dr.Sade and insulted her._

_“YOU’LL NEVER GET THE ARC REACTOR! I’D RATHER FUCKING DIE, DO YOU HEAR ME?”_

Where the fuck had that come from? Edward would never say something like this. It’s as if someone else had taken over his body for a few moments and spewed out the hateful sentence.

Edward doesn’t know where the fuck that sentence had come from, and he suspects he’ll need to come up with a good reason for why he said that, or he won’t leave this room alive. Sooner rather than later, preferably.

And sooner it will have to be, because Dr. Sade enters the room at that precise moment. She walks over to him, eyes cold and hard.

“It seems like you are harder to break than we thought. You almost had us fooled, you know. Too bad you revealed your true colours before you could do anything. Trust me, we won’t make the same mistake twice.”

What is she—what is she talking about? He feels like there is a monumental misunderstanding going on. He tries talking it out.

“Ma’am, I am deeply sorry for what I said, I don’t understand why I said that, I didn’t mean it, I don’t—”

She slaps him so hard he bites his tongue.

“Don’t mock me.”

He can only stare up at her, stunned, swallowing the blood.

 _This is bad. This is_ really _bad. She won’t listen to anything you try to tell her, Edward, can’t you see she’s furious?_

He must have said something else, or maybe he did something that would explain why she looks at him like that. He doesn’t dare ask her what it was, of fear of getting hit again. Oh god, are they going to beat him up?

He doesn’t struggle when they free him from the straps and quickly handcuff him behind his back. They shove him to his knee, and his confusion only increases when she tells him that he knows what to do.

What?

Why would he—

They leave, all of them, before he can think of opening his mouth again. It’s utterly incomprehensible. Why did they leave him? Don’t they want to know why he said such an outrageous thing?

Why did Sade say he almost fooled her? What did she mean?

He’s missing something. She had a whole conversation with him, and he didn’t understand a word of it.

His headache is getting worse again.

Fuck.

Okay.

He needs to sit down and stay calm. Maybe this is just a mind game. Maybe they just want to see what he’s going to do while alone. If he just shows them that he isn’t violent, that he does what they tell him to do, they’ll see that he isn’t trying to fool them or fight them or—

The electrical current is so unexpected that he shouts at the top of his lungs.

_What did I do what did I do why am I being electrocuted oh my fucking god it hurts so much please stop this please stop please please please_

The current stops flowing as abruptly as it has started, leaving Edward a trembling mess on the floor. What the fuck was that for? Did he trigger a mechanism by sitting down? Was he not allowed to move? No, that can’t have been it, he was moving his head and his arms before he got electrocuted. Is he not allowed to sit? Is that it? Or are they somehow monitoring his thoughts? What did he think of before the electricity was switched on?

He doesn’t know.

A lower current runs through him, and he starts panicking for real. He tries calling out, tries rolling up, tries standing and hobbling on one foot to the closed door, but all he gets is a stronger current, not as strong as the first one, but enough to make him lose his balance and fall heavily on his side.

He’s too uncoordinated to get up before the electricity arcs through him again. He can feel his heart thundering in his chest, his limbs are twitching uncontrollably, and he can’t breathe properly.

Shit, shit, _shit_!

At this rate, he’ll enter cardiac arrest!

They know that, they have access to his medical file, they even make sure he takes his pills every night! So why are they torturing him like this, when his heart could give out at a moment’s notice? Do they want him to _die_?

But what would be the point of killing him like this? Doesn’t torture involve interrogations? Why don’t they want to get information out of him, if he’s the traitor Sade says he is? Why did she shut him up when he tried to explain?

He shouts again as the low current passes through him, more out of fear than pain. He’s sweating, his head is killing him, and his vision is starting to blur. His whole left side is numb. Is that normal?

Is he going to die?

He has a weak heart, it won’t be able to handle this.

The stronger current passes through him, and through his teary eyes, he can only see white. He knows the next current will hurt. A lot.

He doesn’t want to die like this, not even knowing why they’re killing him.

He doesn’t want to end like D’Omage.

He screams.

“Please! My heart! I won’t survive! Please! I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did, please just tell me what—”

He chokes on his words as he gets electrocuted again. It’s agony. White-hot pain, washing through him. His heart beats too fast, skips a beat, then two, beats five times in an increasing staccato, stops entirely. The world is going grey, then black. It fades away.

 

* * *

 

Edward wakes up strapped to the same bed, this time hooked to an IV and heart-rate monitors. For an agonisingly long second, he can’t remember why he’s here, and he panics, because he can’t seem to ever remember anything when he wakes up in a hospital bed. When his memories come back, he realises his situation is worse than a mere memory loss.

_I’m not dead._

Why isn’t he dead? Wasn’t that the point of the electrocuting?

Nothing is making a goddamn sense!

Are they just torturing him for fun? Or is it a punishment for what he said? But isn’t it a little over the top to stop his heart just to punish him? It’s not like bringing Edward to life isn’t risky and time-consuming. Why would they go through the hassle of stopping his heart and then re-starting it?

Luckily for him, or more likely _unluckily_ , Sade enters his field of vision, which means he might get some answers. She has the same cold gaze in her eyes. There’s something like annoyance, too.

“What did you think you were doing yesterday? What good is it going to do you to just lie there? Do you _want_ to die?”

Apparently, he isn’t the only confused one.

“Of course I don’t want to die, ma’am! I— what can I do to make the electrocution stop?”

It’s not really what he wanted to ask, but he wants the answer to that, too. If they haven’t killed him yet, there is still a chance they’ll let him live.

She’s stunned speechless for a few seconds, and Edward doesn’t understand what he said to make her react like that.

“What can you do to— ‘ma’am’— “

She turns to someone he can’t see.

“Amenez-moi le détecteur de mensonges.”

Oh. That’s… that’s progress, at least. She isn’t hitting him. And with the lie detector, they will see that he has nothing to hide.

The ten minutes it takes for the lie detector to arrive are so tense that Edward almost attempts small talk to escape from the oppressing silence.

When it is brought in, they cuff his left hand to the bed along with his ankle and hook up his right hand to the lie-detector.

Sade starts right away.

“What is your name.”

Oh, right, she’s asking him obvious questions first to establish a control line.

“Edward René.”

“Who do you work for?”

“HYDRA.”

“Repeat after me: I serve HYDRA, heil HYDRA.”

”I serve HYDRA, heil HYDRA.”

”Why didn’t you kneel yesterday?”

“I—was I supposed to kneel?”

She looks speculatively at him, then turns away to see the results from the detector. What she sees makes her eyebrows rise to her hairline.

“What is your name?”

“Edward René.”

She glances between the results and him.

“Are you Tony Stark?”

_What?_

“What?”

“Answer the question.”

“…No.”

Impossibly, she grows even more surprised.

“Why did you yell at me yesterday?”

Oh thank god, they’re finally talking about what put him in this situation.

“I don’t know, I swear I don’t know why I said that. I don’t mean that at all. I don’t know what came over me.”

She glances at the results again. Glances back at him. Chews on her lip. He’s never seen her so human before.

She turns to that same person again, beckons them closer, and they have a hushed conversation. Edward can only make out the words “ne ment pas” and “oublié”. Of course he isn’t lying! Why would he? They can see right through his lies anyway. It’s not like he was trained to fool a lie detector.

She turns back to him, face unreadable again.

“It seems we had a misunderstanding. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Don’t worry, this will all soon be forgotten.” With that, she smiles one of her creepy smiles, and walks away. He’s so stunned he just watches her leave.

_Is it… that’s it? Just a little friendly torture and then a “my bad” and we’re good?_

For once, Edward agrees with the voice. This is… it’s ridiculous. He turns to one of the guards, musters up his courage to speak, and loses the chance when another guard plunges a needle in his neck. He has a brief moment of absolute panic before he realises it’s just a paralysing agent.

 _Just_ a paralysing agent?

His brain isn’t firing at full cylinders today. He blames it on the nearly-dying electrocution thing.

 _Are you sure this is just a one-off occurrence?_ The voice whispers. _Think about it, Ed. How many times have you had those weird headaches? There is something they aren’t telling you. Keep your eyes open._

Well, it’s not like he has a choice, has he? He couldn’t close them even if he wanted to.

They drag him through the halls of what he recognises is floor -3, then further down into another room.

The moment they step foot inside of it, a cold dread seizes Edward.

He _knows_ this room.

He has been here before. He can feel it in his bones.

That chair… no, the Chair. He knows it.

His skull is splitting open, it hurts so bad. He doesn’t want to sit in the Chair, but he never gets a choice, does he?

They strap him down, and he can only think _remember this_ before the electricity rips his mind into shreds.

 

* * *

 

“Clearly, the arc reactor is a trigger. We can’t afford to have him become unstable like that.”

“Should we try to re-educate him further?”

“We have already spent too much time on him. Leave him like this. He’s still convinced he’s Edward René, which is what we want. Just scrap the iron man project. We don’t need suits of armour to further our cause, make him work on drones and bombs instead.”

“As you wish, sir.”

 

* * *

 

Edward sure wakes up in a hospital bed a lot this month.

The nurse smiles at him and tells him he got a bad migraine, and that he had to stay in bed for a few days to weather it. She tells him it’s normal if he doesn’t remember it. He smiles back at her, but his gut roils.

There’s too much he doesn’t remember.

His uneasiness doesn’t abate as he’s ushered out of the medical bay with yet another bottle of pills he needs to take.

 _There’s no label on your pill bottles, Ed. How do you know what kind of pills you’re taking? They could be giving you anything. Drugs, memory-altering medicine, stuff to keep you weak and pliable. They have you at their_ mercy _._

He doesn’t try to shut down the voice.

He’s not really surprised, either, when they tell him to drop the iron man project and work on drones instead.

The guards never leave him.

He knows something has shifted, that something important happened during the days he was supposedly having a migraine. He doesn’t know what, but he will find out.

He starts testing his limits a little.

Sometimes, he doesn’t take his pills. It always leaves him a bit weaker, and with a headache, but he doesn’t mention it, and it feels good to take control of at least one aspect of his life.

He thinks about building an iron man suit. There has to be something about the iron man suit that will give him a clue as to what is going on with him.

One day, he draws suit schematics in his room. Twenty minutes later, guards enter his room and—

And he can’t remember more than that. He suspects he isn’t even supposed to remember that the guards dragged him off, so he acts as if he thinks he spent the night in his bed instead of in one of the interrogation rooms. He doesn’t draw schematics anymore. Instead, he makes complicated blueprints and models in his head. It’s hard, but it works.

Every time he wakes up with that sparking headache and trembling hands, he knows they got him during the night.

They’re making him forget things. They’re constantly monitoring him. They don’t trust him.

In fact, they’re all but treating him as a prisoner, but simultaneously acting as if he isn’t aware he is one. Which is interesting, to say the least. It means that he has something valuable, that he hasn’t given them yet, or that he’s constantly giving them, but unknowingly. He suspects it’s something he knows, or used to know. His only currency is skills and knowledge, so it has to be one of those.

He still doesn’t know what he has that is so important, but he feels like he will grasp it soon.

He’s fooling the cameras into thinking he swallows all his pills, while he only swallows those that help his heart. It had taken him a while to understand which pills actually help him, but after a few weeks of careful trial and error, he categorised the pills into “need to live” and “avoid at all costs”.

It’s slow going, but he’s getting there.

Days, weeks, months creep by, and he feels _it_ , whatever it is, inch closer.

He just needs an opportunity.

 

* * *

 

Once he has the first stone, getting the rest is almost disappointingly easy. He leaves the Asgardians with the power stone and the space stone, and travels to Knowhere. There, he acquires the reality stone, and after a brief encounter with the group of misfits that Gamora had tried to flee with, he leaves with Gamora. It saddens him, immensely, that she never realised that what he did was necessary. It almost kills him to think about how he got the soul stone, but he promised himself he would do anything to accomplish his mission, and he always keeps his promises.

It’s with a heavy heart that he arrives on Titan, only to be ambushed by two Terrans and the Guardians. He’s angered that Maw was lost, so he crushes them without giving them a chance of fighting him.

It’s child’s play to make the sorcerer give him the time stone. A clever combination of the reality and power stones lulls the Terran into a false sense of security and allows him to add the time stone to his collection.  He has the satisfaction of seeing the look of horrified understanding on the sorcerer’s face when he lifts the illusion. He vanishes into a portal before the others wake up.

One to go.

.

.

Terra is not as primitive as he expected. The dark-skinned warriors are fierce and cunning, their technology impressive for such a young planet. Of course, they are nothing before his might, but they can almost fight toe-to-toe with his army.

Some warriors are more powerful than the rest. He sees a man in a metal armour and is ecstatic for a moment, thinking he has finally met the only man who had ever defeated his Chitauri, the only being who could hope to measure up to the mighty Thanos, the Iron Man, _Tony Stark_ , but his hopes are crushed when he realises it’s merely the green beast in its human form.

Enhanced Terrans try to stop him, but they are laughably weak. The witch, however, has the power of the mind stone in her blood, and she manages the impressive feat of stopping him while simultaneously destroying the mind stone. He would have been distressed had he not had the time stone. As it is, he has it, so he just waits until she exhausts herself and collapses over the dead android, crying her heart out.

He can sympathise.

A twist and turn of the time stone, and the mind stone is there for his plucking.

The power that surges through him when all the stones are finally, _finally_ united, is like nothing he’s ever felt before. He can almost feel his cells shredding themselves apart and regenerating at an impossible speed. The electricity arches through him, destroys him and empowers him all in one shuddering sweep.

He has the universe at his fingertips.

It takes an eternity, it is an agony, but he manages to move his fingers.

 

 

 

_Snap._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew, this chapter was a beast to write. my longest chapter to date, too. Hope you enjoyed it. As you can see, things will take a very different turn next chapter.... 
> 
> Translations:   
> “Amenez-moi le détecteur de mensonges.”: "Bring me the lie detector."  
> “ne ment pas”: "not lying"  
> “oublié”: "forgot"
> 
> as always, comments give me life and motivation <3


End file.
